Augmenting Human Memory - Capture and Recall in the Era of Lifelogging (Dagstuhl Seminar 14362)

Abstract

Recent developments in capture technology and information retrieval allow for continuous and automated recordings of many aspects of our everyday lives. By combining this with basic research in memory psychology, today's memory augmentation technologies may soon be elevated from a clinical niche application to a mainstream technology, initiating a major change in the way we use technology to remember and to externalize memory. Future capture technologies and corresponding control mechanisms will allow us to automate the acquisition of personal memories and subsequently trigger feedback of such memories through ambient large displays and personal mobile devices in order to aid personal memory acquisition, retention, and attenuation. The emergence of this new breed of memory psychology-inspired capture and recall technology will represent a radical transformation in the way we understand and manage human memory acquisition and recall. 

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 14362 "Augmenting Human Memory - Capture and Recall in the Era of Lifelogging", which brought together 28 researchers from multiple disciplines both within computer science -- mobile computing, privacy and security, social computing and ethnography, usability, and systems research -- as well as from related disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and economics, in order to discuss how these trends are changing our existing research on capture technologies, privacy and society, and existing theories of memory.