Augmenting human memory using personal lifelogs

Memory is a key human facility to support life activities, including social interactions, life management and problem solving. Unfortunately, our memory is not perfect. Normal individuals will have occasional memory problems which can be frustrating, while those with memory impairments can often experience a greatly reduced quality of life. Augmenting memory has the potential to make normal individuals more effective, and those with significant memory problems to have a higher general quality of life. Current technologies are now making it possible to automatically capture and store daily life experiences over an extended period, potentially even over a lifetime. This type of data collection, often referred to as a personal life log (PLL), can include data such as continuously captured pictures or videos from a first person perspective, scanned copies of archival material such as books, electronic documents read or created, and emails and SMS messages sent and received, along with context data of time of capture and access and location via GPS sensors. PLLs offer the potential for memory augmentation. Existing work on PLLs has focused on the technologies of data capture and retrieval, but little work has been done to explore how these captured data and retrieval techniques can be applied to actual use by normal people in supporting their memory. In this paper, we explore the needs for augmenting human memory from normal people based on the psychology literature on mechanisms about memory problems, and discuss the possible functions that PLLs can provide to support these memory augmentation needs. Based on this, we also suggest guidelines for data for capture, retrieval needs and computer-based interface design. Finally we introduce our work-in-process prototype PLL search system in the iCLIPS project to give an example of augmenting human memory with PLLs and computer based interfaces

The influence of patient and doctor gender on diagnosing coronary heart disease

Using novel methods, this paper explores sources of uncertainty and gender bias in primary care doctors’ diagnostic decision making about coronary heart disease (CHD). Claims about gendered consultation styles and quality of care are re-examined, along with the adequacy of CHD models for women. Randomly selected doctors in the UK and the US (n=112, 56 per country, stratified by gender) were shown standardised videotaped vignettes of actors portraying patients with CHD. ‘Patients’ age, gender, ethnicity and social class were varied systematically. During interviews, doctors gave free-recall accounts of their decision making, which were analysed to determine patient and doctor gender effects. We found differences in male and female doctors’ responses to different types of patient information. Female doctors recall more patient cues overall, particularly about history presentation, and particularly amongst women. Male doctors appear less affected by patient gender but both male and especially female doctors take more account of male patients’ age and consider more age-related disease possibilities for men than women. Findings highlight the need for better integration of knowledge about female presentations within accepted CHD risk models, and do not support the contention that women receive better quality care from female doctors

Societal impact of a serious game on raising public awareness: the case of FloodSim

This paper presents an evaluation of the societal impact of a simulation-based Serious Game. FloodSim was developed with the aim of raising awareness of issues surrounding flooding policy and citizen engagement in the UK. The game was played by a large number of users (N=25,701) in a period of 4 weeks. Quantitative and qualitative analyses (on a reduced data set) were carried out in order to explore the impact of FloodSim play in raising the general public awareness around flooding in the UK. The results suggest FloodSim was hugely successful in generating general public interest and there was evidence that (a) FloodSim increased awareness at a basic level and (b) that despite the simplicity of the simulation, players perceived FloodSim to be an accurate source of information about flood risk and prevention. This suggests that serious games such as FloodSim have potential to engage the public and raise awareness of societal issues. However, FloodSim only raised awareness at a basic level. It is suggested that more needs to be done to endow serious games with pedagogical principles and more care should be given to the accuracy of the information they convey. The appropriateness of games as an educational medium for raising awareness of complex, real-life issues should also be carefully considered. This study throws some light on the potential of simulation-based Serious Games to offer experiential learning, engage users with serious topics while raising public awareness and understanding of social issues such as flooding and related policymaking. Future research is outlined consisting of identifying the problems and challenges in designing and developing serious games while considering pedagogical principles

Spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in dance performance

In this paper we present a study of spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in live dance performance. A multidisciplinary team comprising a choreographer, neuroscientists and qualitative researchers investigated the effects of different sound scores on dance spectators. What would be the impact of auditory stimulation on kinesthetic experience and/or aesthetic appreciation of the dance? What would be the effect of removing music altogether, so that spectators watched dance while hearing only the performers’ breathing and footfalls? We investigated audience experience through qualitative research, using post-performance focus groups, while a separately conducted functional brain imaging (fMRI) study measured the synchrony in brain activity across spectators when they watched dance with sound or breathing only. When audiences watched dance accompanied by music the fMRI data revealed evidence of greater intersubject synchronisation in a brain region consistent with complex auditory processing. The audience research found that some spectators derived pleasure from finding convergences between two complex stimuli (dance and music). The removal of music and the resulting audibility of the performers’ breathing had a significant impact on spectators’ aesthetic experience. The fMRI analysis showed increased synchronisation among observers, suggesting greater influence of the body when interpreting the dance stimuli. The audience research found evidence of similar corporeally focused experience. The paper discusses possible connections between the findings of our different approaches, and considers the implications of this study for interdisciplinary research collaborations between arts and sciences