One of the most famous examples of reminiscence includes a
madeleine dipped in tea, which lead to almost 3,000 pages of recollection by
the narrator in the beginning of Marcel Proust's novel
In Search of Lost Time,
and we have all experienced these sensory triggers to a particular memory. Remembering
the past helps us to re-examine our lives, make choices, and share personal
accomplishments. We often use external devices to help us remember
events big and small, and with advances in technology, we often record and make
plans using a variety of digital devices such as iPhones, Microsoft’s Outlook,
and even smart watches. We have the capability to store a lifetime of data with
these advanced technologies, and with the advent of Facebook, Twitter, “selfies”,
and blogs it has become routine for many people to document their lives on a
daily basis in a digital form, a practice that has been referred to as
“lifelogging.” The outcome of documenting activities digitally are human
digital memories (HDM), which have been defined as “
a combination
of many types of media, audio, video, images, and many texts of textual content [1].
The concept of recording and then later having the ability
to review certain documents was first proposed by Dr. Vannevar Bush in 1945
when he described the
“Memex”
(a combination of “memory” and index”) in an issue of
Atlantic Monthly [2]. As described in the article,
a Memex was “
a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and
communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with
exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his
memory.”The device would look like
a desk where documents were either recorded via microfilm or photography.
 |
| From u-tx.net |
Since that time, many
similar devices have been developed, but a revolutionary advance was seen with
Microsoft’s
SenseCam a wearable camera with a wide-angle lens and multiple
sensors, including an infrared sensor to detect the presence of other people.
The camera takes a photo every 30 seconds, resulting in up to 2,500 photos a
day and is capable of storing 30,000 images in total. Photos can then uploaded
to a computer and viewed later using a Microsoft application [3].
SenseCam was developed as a memory aid and there has been over 50 research institutions
that have used the device in a variety of studies involving memory and behavior [4]. Notably the
SenseCam has shown promising results in studies where it
was used as memory aid for a child with anterograde amnesia [5] and with adult patients that were
suffering from amnesia [3]. Aside from the medical
purpose that a camera such as
SenseCam
could potentially serve, “lifelogging” has become more socially acceptable as
we live in a digital age where Facebook posts and Twitter feeds are consumed
constantly, and
“selfies”
are a regular occurrence at most events.
