Memory lane: an intelligent, multimodal, mobile reminiscence companion for older adults

Abstract

The benefits of technology to older people have been recognised in terms of how it can offer assistance in addressing the challenges posed to governments and society as a whole as the older population continues to increase rapidly. Computer technologies have been developed with the specific aim of assisting older people to live in their own homes for longer, often by supporting them with the tasks of daily life as the natural physical and cognitive declines of age take their toll. Other initiatives focus on the usability of the technology which the younger generation, who have grown up with it, take as a given part of everyday life, but which can be unfamiliar, sometimes frightening, and often difficult to use for older people. This research focuses on the usability of mobile computing devices for older people by focusing on an activity of established benefit and enjoyment for this group - reminiscence. This thesis discusses the design and implementation of an intelligent, multimodal, mobile Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) ap-plication, Memory Lane (ML). Memory Lane incorporates Rule-Based-Reasoning (RBR)to intelligently support older people by adapting its interface and multimodal output to address individual physical abilities in terms of vision, hearing and dexterity, and individual user preferences in terms of interface presentation and the input/output modalities selected. Older people were central to this research. Overall, sixty-seven older people contributed to establishing the issues experienced with a PDA, the design of a novel interface and reminiscence application, and its evaluation. Experimental results from a detailed evaluation comparing interaction and reminiscence using a PDA with and without the intelligent support of Memory Lane are discussed. These results show statistically significant improvements both in the usability of the PDA and in the quality of the reminiscence experience. This thesis demonstrates how the usability of small, mobile computing devices can be significantly improved for older people by incorporating intelligent functionality to adapt and to address individual abilities and preferences. It also demonstrates how the reminiscence experience of older people can be significantly enhanced through the presentation of intelligently combined multimedia, on a small, mobile computing device, which also takes these individual differences into consideration.

Date of Award	Mar 2011
Original language	English
Supervisor	Heather Sayers (Supervisor), Paul Mc Kevitt (Supervisor) & Michael McTear (Supervisor)