Implications and Future Work

We believe that our work can contribute to the design of future pervasive mem- ory augmentation systems with respect to the idea of using wearable cameras as a replacement for manual picture taking. The "photo-taking impairment effect" would posit that wearable cameras offer less memory distraction, hence improve active memorization of events. The artificial limit on the number of photos taken offered another point in the design space, questioning if fewer, more "thought- fully" taken pictures may lower this memory impairment. Our findings suggest that the quality of current generation wearable cameras does not yet live up to this promise, and that we require novel ways of capturing meaningful memories in a non-distractive fashion. Also, the fact that the wearer is not included in the captured pictures may limit the value of such images for recalling episodic mem- ories. Bexheti et al., recently proposed a system architecture for automating the

156 6.7 Summary

sharing of lifelogging images for co-located peers[24].

In future work, we plan to continue our trials towards investigating the added value of lifelogging images for human memory in later stages of recall (i.e., a month or a year after an experience). We believe that lifelogging cameras hold a potential for augmenting one’s memory recall under certain conditions. For example, the need for selectivity and not total capture is one direction we are currently investigating [210]. In particular, we are investigating if a range of physiological responses (e.g., heart rate) as measured by wearable sensors (e.g., a smart watch) could indicate moments of increased significance or increased memory value for informing the capture or display of specific lifelogging content [168, 200].

6.7

Summary

In this chapter, we contrasted limited, unlimited, and automatic picture capture in augmenting human memory recall, and in the quality of memory cues produced (i.e., RQ2). We could confirm that manual picture capture may lead to the en- coding of memories of lower quality. Contrary to Nightingale et al. [171], we thus confirmed Henkel’s "photo-taking impairment" effect[108], and attributed it to the act of picture capture, not external memory support[212, 218]. We also found that automated capture as offered by today’s wearable lifelogging cameras produces pictures that hold only a low potential in improving one’s ability to re- member a prior experience. While our participants exhibited various behaviours and techniques in an effort to handle an imposed capture scarcity (when using the "My Good Old Kodak" Camera application), limited capture did not improve their recall significantly, while unlimited capture did increase it significantly.

Findings reported in this chapter contribute to the design and development of future pervasive memory augmentation systems, as described in Chapter 9. In the next chapter, we investigate the potential of hybrid memory cues to syner- gistically support both episodic and semantic memory recall, while trialling the feasibility of cue-based memory augmentation in the workplace domain.

Chapter 7

Augmenting Memory Recall for Work

Meetings

Being able to better recall a work meeting could improve coordination and col- laboration among peers, ultimately raising overall productivity. For evaluating the effectiveness and feasibility of hybrid memory cues that target both episodic and semantic memory (i.e., RQ3), we selected the workplace application do- main, and we conducted a multi–week study with seven groups. Using a within- subjects design, participants in the experimental condition were, prior to a meet- ing, briefly presented with an automatically created memory augmentation aid (slides), based on captured data from a prior meeting. Our results show that a 3–4 minute exposure to our simple image-keywords slide deck prior to a meet- ing, increased our participants’ ability to recall their previous meeting by up to 15 %. Our findings serve as an initial baseline against which future memory augmentation systems can be compared.

7.1

Author’s Contribution

The author of this thesis had a leading role in the study reported in this chap- ter. In particular, his contribution includes the conceptualization and design of the memory intervention, the study design, data analyses, deployment and writ- ing. The co-authors of the original publication[169] assisted in conducting the user study and collecting the data. Moreover, the co-authors also implemented a prototype version of the envisioned system. Senior co-authors provided useful guidance and expertise on human memory theory as well as, editing the original publication. For more information, see[169].

158 7.2 Introduction

7.2

Introduction

Work meetings present an ideal testbed for trialling the combinatory power of hybrid episodic-semantic memory cues (i.e., RQ3), since people generally strive for remembering work meetings better, yet are often unwilling to take extensive notes and/or review detailed minutes before subsequent meetings. We set up an experiment that enabled us to assess to which extent a pervasive memory aug- mentation system could improve one’s recollection of past meetings. Our system simply creates a set of memory cues in the form of a short slide deck, extracted from data that it automatically captured during a previous meeting. Participants reviewed these slides prior to their next meeting to refresh their memory about the previous meeting. Using a technique known as a "cognitive interview" [78], we then determined the past meeting recollection of our participants both in a control condition (no memory cues shown), and in the experimental condition (after having browsed the memory cue slide deck). By measuring the topical overlap between a recorded meeting and each participant’s probed recollection of the meeting, we were then able to quantify the effect that our memory aug- mentation system had on our participant’s recollection of a prior meeting.

Obviously, reviewing any sort of summary of a past meeting prior to the next meeting will increase one’s immediate recollection of said prior meeting. We would also expect a similar effect if one would review meeting notes, or watch a recording of a prior meeting. What is not clear, however, is the extent to which such a simple, automated memory aid can augment memory recall. To our knowledge, our study is the first that quantifies the actual increase in memory re- call stemming from an automated memory augmentation system, and hence our findings contribute to the design and development of future pervasive memory augmentation systems.