PHOTMOSPHERE: A System for Amplifying Connection between Memory and Record

Photographs capture information on situations or circumstances that give some clue about peopleaa past activities. They remind people of not only their personal activities and experiences but also social events that take place at a certain time (e.g., news, fashion) and place (e.g., local festivals, sightings). We aim to use such information to help people recollect past events and to acquire novel information by connecting their memory and social records, for example, news reports. Toward this purpose, we introduce PHOTMOSPHERE, a system that helps users recollect past events by connecting memory (photographs) and records (news). We conducted an experiment to observe an effect of showing news with photographs. The participants were shown either only photographs they had taken or both news reports and photographs they had taken. They were then asked to describe their recollections under both conditions. We found that, in many cases, the news reports helped the participants remember events, but not in some cases, for instance, when the subject of the photograph was a person or an object. On the basis of this result, we reformulate the design criteria of the PHOTMOSPHERE.