Master thesis 2014 – 3rd-semester master with Martha Miosga

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Challenge Every day, people try to capture the most unique and important moments, e.g. marriage, holiday or birthday. We believe that the most significant memories are those, we don‘t perceive as such. But how can we indentify these unconscious moments from the conscious emotional moments of the life? How can we reduce the amount of consciously taken pictures in order to enjoy daily moments? Approach During the process we had several interviews with experts in the fields of cognitive memory research, archiving, dementia research and photography. We collected insights and needs of our stakeholders and target group. Due to our research, we found out that the brain has a filter that separates important and banal memories - this filter are our emotions. Emotional moments get rather stored by the brain than moments with neutral experiences. Every emotional change triggers an unique body reaction. These physiologic patterns are measurable by means of pulse, heart frequency, conductivity and temperature of skin. In addition, all our memories are linked to each other in a kind of network using three parameters: people, place and time. Result „MNEMO“ is a combination of hard- and software components. The hardware consists of a sensory bracelet which is wireless related to an attachable camera. The concept combines evidence of the cognitive science, memory formation and interaction design. It provides an innovative approach to document moments which are especially emotional and episodic experiences in a new way. When the sensors of the bracelet note an emotional change, the camera creates a three-second long video simultaneously. This timing matches to the information processing of the brain. The appropriate software organises and links the shots by location, time, person and emotion in a network and makes them re-experienceable. To relive these memories, the user can interact with the network via the innovative three-axis-navigation.