Exploring and Designing for Memory Impairments in Depression

Depression is an affective disorder with distinctive autobiographical memory impairments, including negative bias, overgeneralization and reduced positivity. Several clinical therapies address these impairments, and there is an opportunity to develop new supports for treatment by considering depression-associated memory impairments within design. We report on interviews with ten experts in treating depression, with expertise in both neuropsychology and cognitive behavioral therapies. The interview explores approaches for addressing each of these memory impairments. We found consistent use of positive memories for treating all memory impairments, the challenge of direct retrieval, and the need to support the experience of positive memories. Our findings open up new design opportunities for memory technologies for depression, including positive memory banks for active encoding and selective retrieval, novel cues for supporting generative retrieval, and novel interfaces to strengthen the reliving of positive memories

Reviewing and evaluating mobile apps for memory impairments in depression

Depression is a major affective disorder which influences autobiographical memory processing abilities. Mobile phones hold great potential for delivering effective self-help treatments that target depression and for assisting users’ memory processing. This work explores commercial apps that support users’ everyday challenges associated with depression and in particular memory processing. Our results highlight the current functionalities of top-rated apps on major marketplaces, which could be used to inform novel functionalities, better tailored to address depression-related memory issues and consequently reduce users’ depressive symptoms

Mental Health Resources: Reflection on AffecTech Platform

This positon paper presents an overview of the mental health resources developed within the AffecTech, an interdisciplinary European Commission-funded project supporting the wok of 15 PhD students in the space of digital interventions for affective health. It describes different types of targeted resources highlighting both traditional and innovative ones, our approach to developing them, and the challenges and opportunities that our work has uncovered

Keynote: HCI research and wellbeing

This talk provides outlines the disciplinary field of Human-Computer Interaction and provides an overview of my work on technologies for emotional wellbeing and mental health. The presentation places emphasis on the value the human body experiencing the world and describe research outcomes regarding digital disposal following life transitions marked by social loss, and design principles for affective health technologies. The talk concludes with an outline of the AffecTech: Personal technologies for affective health, an EC-funded Innovative Training Network and its interdisciplinary focus

Keynote: The ethics of big data for digital wellbeing and mental health

This talk offers an overview of work on digital wellbeing and mental health that I have done with my research group and external collaborators over the last several 10 years. It unpacks the topics such emotional memories, awareness, regulation and processing, illustrated with relevant design exemplars. This talk highlights my reflection on the ethical challenges regarding these personal technologies and in particular on their use to inform big data-based services. The talk concludes with a call for the importance of considering these ethical implications when designing personal mental health technologies

First person HCI research:Tapping into designers’ tacit experiences

The emphasis on user experience, and bodily-driven approaches in HCI has paved the way towards a richer understanding of felt-life experience. Unlike users however, designers need specific methods to access such experiences and to work with them in their design. This paper presents three cases studies where we employed first person research method to design or evaluate interactive systems, or where we directly explored professional designers’ first person accounts of felt-life experiences in their practice. We conclude with a reflection on opportunities and challenges of this methodological approach in HCI, and three suggestions for first person HCI research

Digital Wellbeing:Evaluating Mandala Coloring Apps

Over the last decade there has been a significant growth of consumer products to support and promote both physical and mental wellbeing. The most common approach consists of smartphone applications that can be easily adopted in daily life interactions. Generally, these apps translate traditional approaches for wellbeing into the digital realm, yet many times overlooking the importance of tailored design for wellbeing. We explore this translation from physical to digital by using the example of mandala coloring, a historic practice used as an instrument for mental wellbeing. In this position paper, we discuss the concept of digital wellbeing drawing from our findings from an auto-ethnographic and heuristic evaluation of the 14 best rated iOS apps for mandala coloring in the UK. We believe that future digital experiences should be designed with the aim of enhancing human potential, hence we consider key features for positive interactions that lead to digital wellbeing

Problems in Practice:Critiquing on Thermochromic based Displays for Representing Skin Conductance

Increasing HCI work on affective technologies is using different materials to represent biosensory data. We explored several thermochromic, heating, and insulation materials to represents skin conductance data through abstract and ambiguous representations. We report on the development of three prototypes to represent emotional arousal using different colors, patterns, and shapes. By critically reflecting on our experience, we highlight problems in these prototypes and propose design guidelines to inform future research for representing arousal using thermochromic materials

Towards inclusive multisensory embodied experiences for affective and cognitive health

This paper presents a brief overview of my work on disability focusing on affective and cognitive health for embodied and multisensory interactions. This body of work is used to reflect on how senses can be better leveraged to empower the changes experienced by the dynamic self, and to open up conversations on how to design for inclusive interoceptive interactions