The paper presents an audio-based personal memory aid in which users can record audio conversations via a portable device (iPaq PDA) called a Memory Prosthesis. The authors present a discussion of user memory limitations, technology limitations (speech recognition, audio quality, storage, indexing, retrieval, etc.) and social / legal ramifications of recording audio conversations.
The Memory Prosthesis allows users to record user conversations and subsequently access conversations via a pc-based system that allows users to browse or search conversations.
The paper also discusses an evaluation of the PC-based system and results of the study. To evaluate the system, the Memory Prosthesis was used to record presentations of a three-day conference. One month following the conference, 11 participants (nine of who were speakers) were asked to answer questions from the conference that required them to remember / retrieve information about presentations.
During the first phase of the evaluation, participants were asked to complete the questionnaire without the use of memory aids. During the second phase, participants were allowed to use the PC-based retrieval system to locate answers. The authors recorded success rate, number and type of memory errors, and time to answer questions. Participants were also encouraged to think aloud while searching for information.
The results showed that participants were more successful using memory aids to answer the questions than without aids. Participants had a slightly higher success rate answering questions in which they had been present for the session, than those questions that dealt with sessions in which they were not present. Participants answered questions without the retrieval system faster than when they used it.
The authors conclude that even with the limitations (technological, social and legal), there is some support that audio capture and indexing aids in memory retrieval.
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