Sharing and Accessing Autobiographical Memories Tied with Media
Francisco Ludovico and Teresa Chambel
a
LASIGE, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Keywords: Autobiographical and Collective Memories, Movies, Music, Personal Journal, Family Ties, Serendipity.
Abstract: Autobiographical Memory is a vital cognitive tool, as it plays a crucial role in identity formation, helping
individuals establish a sense of self and continuity across time; and it contributes to social bonding by enabling
the sharing of personal narratives. In turn, movies, music, and other media types are always present in our
lives due to being among the most relevant and emotional forms of entertainment and education. So much so
that we can easily make connections between media and memorable moments and places in our lives,
supporting autobiographical memory; and these important remembrances tend to be somehow shared with
other people, like family and close friends. With that in mind, we present a user survey carried out to learn
about user habits, preferences, and perceived needs in this context; an interactive web application being
designed and developed to allow users to register, navigate, and share their memories associated with media,
with spatio-temporal and emotional perspectives, aiming to support and strengthen sense of self and social
bonding even across generations; and a preliminary user evaluation with encouraging results.
1 INTRODUCTION
Media, in its many forms, has always had a predomi-
nant role in our lives and can serve different purposes.
Movies, songs, and TV shows are not just a form of
entertainment; as with any other art form, they allow
us to relate with them by expressing emotions and
experiences similar, in some ways, to the ones we
have lived throughout our lives (Kubrak, 2020).
Music, in particular, quite present in movies as well,
can be a strong cue for autobiographical memories,
accessible and relatively stable throughout adulthood;
being effective for achieving motivation, by favoring
positive emotional memory experiences, in particular
in older adults, also quite relevant in healthy aging
(Jakubowski et al., 2021).
As such, we can, in a straightforward manner,
make bridges and connect moments of our lives, like
important milestones and more personal remembran-
ces (for instance, trips abroad, or the first time we
have been to a place that is near and dear to us) with
movies and songs. These connections allow us to
build a richer and more complete autobiographical
memory since they are based on moments, places, and
the emotions that certain forms of media make us feel
(Holland and Kensinger, 2010). Sometimes, we also
like to share and talk about these key memories with
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0306-3352
people that surround us. Usually, these are family
members or some of our closest friends, who find
enjoyment in knowing these often-shared memories,
and sometimes they are even able to feel some of the
feelings that those important moments sparked in us.
This practice can have positive implications,
strengthening relationships with family members, and
even in our mental health (Elias and Brown, 2022).
Therefore, it is important to find a way to join
media with personal and collective memories and to
share them with people that are relevant to us,
possibly improving or nurturing relationships, and
allowing the discovery of media content that may be
found significant. Even social networks and social
media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, or
WhatsApp, respectively, allow us to share media
content that may make us remember important times
in our lives in a variety of different ways; but they
have a different purpose. While these ways of sharing
media content have become a sort of standard in our
current digital society, none of them fully explore the
articulation between personal memories, the media,
and the emotional impacts that these can have, along
time and space.
In this paper, we present a user survey conducted
to learn about how people relate to media; how often
and how they write about, keep, and share important
674
Ludovico, F. and Chambel, T.
Sharing and Accessing Autobiographical Memories Tied with Media.
DOI: 10.5220/0013370600003912
Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
In Proceedings of the 20th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2025) - Volume 1: GRAPP, HUCAPP
and IVAPP, pages 674-681
ISBN: 978-989-758-728-3; ISSN: 2184-4321
Proceedings Copyright © 2025 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda.

moments in their lives; how they represent the
passage of time; and their previous experience and
expectations concerning applications to store and
share autobiographical memories. Based on these
results and a review of the background in the area, we
propose and present As Ties Go By an interactive web
application being designed and developed to let users
register, navigate, and share with family members and
friends some of their most important memories,
especially those related with movies and music, and
be notified in contextualized settings in time and
space, promoting the discovery of new media content
by serendipity. Then, we present a user evaluation to
assess the usability, usefulness, and overall quality of
the user experience with the application, with
encouraging results; and conclude with final
reflections and perspectives for future work.
2 BACKGROUND
This section presents an overview of the most signifi-
cant concepts and previous research and applications
relevant to our work.
2.1 Context
Autobiographical Memory: At its core, it involves
retaining and retrieving specific events, emotions,
and contextual details tied to personal experiences
(Byrne, 2017). This multidimensional construct
comprises: episodic memory, capturing the ”what,”
”where,” and ”when” of events; and semantic
memory, providing the broader knowledge
framework that contextualizes these experiences
within one’s life story. Moreover, autobiographical
memory contributes to social bonding by enabling the
sharing of personal narratives. Through storytelling,
individuals strengthen social connections, foster
empathy, and deepen interpersonal relationships
(Bietti, 2010). The shared reminiscence of past events
creates a communal reservoir of experiences,
reinforcing the fabric of family and friendship bonds.
Collective Memory: This type of memory
represents the shared recollections and interpretations
of historical events within a community, forming a
collective narrative that transcends individual
perspectives. It emerges through the collective
processes of encoding, storage, and retrieval of
information within a community. Collective memory
is shaped by cultural, social, and historical contexts,
encompassing events, traditions, and cultural artifacts
that become part of the group’s identity (Coser,
1992). One of the inherent strengths of collective
memory lies in its ability to reinforce group identity
and cohesion. By weaving a shared narrative,
community members establish a sense of continuity,
belonging, and shared values (Harris et al., 2008).
Personal Computing: The advent of personal
computing has transformed the way individuals
interact with information, media, and each other. It
encompasses the use of individualized computational
devices, such as personal computers, smartphones,
and tablets, which have become integral components
of modern daily life. These devices empower users to
access, create, and share digital content, fostering a
new era of connectivity and personal expression
(Denby et al., 2016). In the context of memory-
sharing applications, personal computing can serve as
the foundational framework for facilitating the
seamless exchange of movies and music among
family members and close friends. The ubiquity of
personal devices opened doors to the possibility of a
digital landscape where individuals can curate and
share multimedia content that resonates with specific
events and paths of their lives (Van Dijck, 2007).
Emotional Models: Emotions significantly
influence human experiences, shaping thoughts,
actions, and wellbeing (Chambel et al., 2011). Movies
and music evoke complex emotional responses
(Hanich et al., 2014), with even sad or unsettling
content often leading to positive experiences through
”passive engagement.” This unique dynamic fosters a
deeper connection between audiences and the media,
highlighting the value of understanding emotional
models. Two major approaches to emotions rely on
dimensional and categorical models. Russell’s Model
stands out in the dimensional approach; and Ekman’s
as a Categorical Model based on universally
recognized facial expressions. Plutchik’s model
combines aspects of both dimensional an categorical
perspectives, organizing emotions in opposing pairs,
with assigned colors, around a wheel. For more
details, see e.g. (Caldeira et al., 2023).
2.2 Related Work
Media platforms allow users to explore and gather in-
formation about a wide array of media content. One
of the most popular is IMDb(.com), allowing users to
search for movies and TV shows based on several
properties, and to create media lists, save, share, rank
and comment, in reviews, these movies or TV shows;
whereas, Netflix and Spotify allow to access the
actual movies and music content. Within a research
project and with a focus both on music and movies,
As Music Goes By (Moreira and Chambel, 2019;
Serra et al., 2020) helps users discover, compare, and
Sharing and Accessing Autobiographical Memories Tied with Media
675

watch music and movies through music versions,
musicians, movie soundtracks, and movie quotes,
along time and with an emotional flavor. But they are
not focused on keeping and sharing memories.
In personal information systems and social media,
Facebook(.com) emerged as one of the first social
networks to remind its users of a post’s anniversary, as
a memory they can relive, repost, and share. Even the
posts are published in a sequence, as a timeline, in
individual accounts or groups. But they are not
specifically memories or associated with media, and
there are no visualizations and filtering in time, space,
nor based on emotions, even though it supports
reactions based on emojis and mood. In terms of
memories, more recently, some mobile phones and
tablets automatically highlight a selection of photos,
and generate memories in videos, adding a musical
background, to recall and share, as compilations of
photos and videos around common perspectives, like
proximity in location, or date, or activity (like dining,
or at the beach), etc., even suggesting a title. But these
are highlights and summaries based on photos and
videos, potentially ephemeral and isolated, not in an
integrated memory timeline, not in groups, and without
an emotional dimension. Apps like WhatsApp or
Messenger allow groups and sharing of messages with
media; but the focus is on communication, not on
memory building or sharing, non on viewing, filtering
of searching individual and group storylines other than
text search and image/msgs browsing, nor notifying
about relevant events regarding these memories.
On the other hand, Family Stories (Bentley et al.,
2011) emerged as a noteworthy creation of research to
promote intergenerational communication through
location-based asynchronous video communication.
Its users, family members in this case, capture brief
video stories encapsulating cherished memories and
engaging narratives, with properties like when and
where the memory happened. This allows to notify the
family members family, when they are close to the
place where the memory told in the video happened. In
another context, personalized video storytelling
techniques were adopted to design an interactive
weather forecast, where: family interaction supported
social reflection on the data, and connecting data with
memories was a compelling way to foster engagement
with the data presented and to support retelling the data
stories. In particular, episodic memories form a
compelling narrative device to encourage reflection,
and, linked with the data, they can be a medium to
share personal or social experiences (Van Den Bosch
et al., 2022).
EmoJar (Chambel and Carvalho, 2020) is based
on keeping and reliving memories associated with
media, with a strong focus on positive emotional
impact. Adopting the Happiness Jar metaphor, users
save in a digital jar media content represented by
“colored papers” as circles (with the color of the
dominant emotion) after having commented the semi-
automatically detected emotional impact of the
media; and then pull one out at random, when feeling
down or wanting to be reminded of good memories.
It has a personal perspective and allows one to view
and filter the jar, even search and filter by time, but it
does not represent them along time, nor space.
And “Nothing is more fundamental to a biography
than time” (Larsen et al., 1996), although viewing
information over time can be a challenge. In previous
work, we addressed multimodal search and visualiza-
tion of movies over time (Caldeira et al., 2023) with
recent extensions to As Music Goes By (Moreira and
Chambel, 2019). It explored methods that take into
account how emotional information evolves as a
movie unfolds, and enables users to query movies
based on dominant emotions, percentage of different
emotions, emojis, and emotional trajectories along
time, inside the movies; now we are focusing on the
time when the memories happened, along the years.
3 USER SURVEY
Before designing and developing the application, we
conducted a user survey to learn about: 1) how people
relate to media, in terms of their habits, attitudes,
awareness, and preferences; 2) how often and how
people write about, keep, and share important
moments that happened in their lives; 3) the different
ways that people have to represent the passage of
time; and 4) their previous experience and expecta-
tions concerning applications that allow them to store
and share their memories, connected or not to media.
Method: The survey was made available and
advertised on social media and work and family
contexts, to reach a wide range of people, in terms of
background, age, and interest in digital platforms. It
was carried out as: an online questionnaire, for wider
participation; and some interviews, based on the same
questions, in an attempt to get more complete and
insightful answers. It had a total of five sections,
mostly relying on closed questions, with the
opportunity to choose ”other” options and provide
additional comments.
Results: We present a summary of the results
gathered from the first 45 participants in the
questionnaire and 8 in interviews, focusing mainly on
the aspects that more closely inform our work.
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676

Section 1: Demographic information: Participants
aged 13-64 (M:28), 62.3% Fem, all from our country
(Portugal); 26.4% completed high school, 5.7% did
not, 7.6% had a professional course, 43.4% BSc, 17%
MSc. Participants work or study in fields that range
from informatics (20.8%) to health (11.3%),
psychology (11.3%), and education (9.4%), along
with others less frequent, in areas like finance,
economics, law, sociology, arts, and math.
Section 2: Accessing and sharing media content:
most common were communication platforms (like
WhatsApp or Messenger), followed by social
networks, video, and music streaming services, then
”others” (like videogames, museums, and movie the-
atres). Their motivation to use media: more often to
feel more relaxed, then to share with family and
friends, to feel more motivated, and to help them go
through hard times. Media content shared more often
with family and friends: music, followed by movies
and TV shows, photos, and videos.
Section 3: Memory register and sharing: 28%
quite often, 25% occasionally, and 47% rarely or
never, write about and register their memories;
whereas 55% quite often, 29% occasionally, and 16%
rarely or never, share important memories with fam-
ily or friends. To keep and share memories, they use
photos (88.2%), videos (66.7%), conversations (58.9
%), digital writing (19.6%), and personal journals
(11.8%). The importance of keeping and sharing
memories with family and friends was considered
high (5-1): very important (5) 52.8% | 26.4% | 15.1%
| 5.7% | 0% (1) not important. They associate media
with important memories: very often (28.3%), often
(41.5%), and reasonably often (24.5%). In the
interviews, they mentioned specific memories, like:
”going to the fountain in Barcelona where Shakira
recorded one of her video clips”, ”going to Disney in
Paris”, and ”a Fast and Furious movie recorded near
my father’s birthplace”.
Section 4: Time Perception: ways of visualizing
time: based on events that happened along time
(66%), in the form of a timeline (35.8%), cyclic
(17%), and divided into chapters (1.9%). In the in-
terviews, they were also asked to recall the year 2016
(when our country won the Euro football champion-
ship, and most participants mentioned it) and to think
about the last and next years, to help achieve a clearer
awareness about how they perceive and represent
time in their minds; as in the questionnaires, with a
prevalence of the role of the main events that
happened or are expected to happen in the future
coming to their minds. Big events’ impact on Time
perception: they are like milestones and help have a
better perception of time (80.8%), it makes time go
faster (13.5%), go slower (3.8%), or have no impact
(1.9%). Effect of digital technology, like social
networks, etc., on time perception: they agreed that it
makes time passage seem faster (76.9%), has no such
effect (15.4%), or depends on the situation.
Section 5: Interest in platforms that connect
memories to media: Very Interested, VI:(20.8%), and
Interested, I:(71.6%). Interest in hypothetical features
of a platform that connects memories to media: 1)
saving memories with media and time visualization in
a private journal VI:(47.2%); I:(35.8%); and 2) sha-
ring memories with media with time visualization in
a shared space: VI:(30.2%); I:(43.4%); 3) identifying
songs playing to access and create related memories:
VI:(29.4%); I:(45.1%); 4) having emotional informa-
tion on the memories they saved and shared: VI:(29.4
%); I:(31,4%); 5) filtering memories by author in
groups: VI:(32.1%); I:(37.7%); and 6) notifications
about memories based on time they happened, or
place close to their current location, etc.: VI:(32.1%);
I:(43.4%). On the last open question, about feature
suggestions, the most relevant answers include: ”ha-
ving our memories show up in a map visualization”;
“configure to not be reminded about some memories,
e.g. sad events”; and “be notified when someone from
our family adds a memory with us”.
4 AS TIES GO BY
This interactive web application has been designed
and developed to allow users to register, access, and
share their memories, especially those associated with
media like music and movies, taking into account the
results of the user survey. It integrates As Music Goes
By (Moreira and Chambel, 2019; Serra and Chambel,
2020), where users can search, visualize, and explore
music and movies from complementary perspectives
of music versions, artists, quotes and movie
soundtracks over time; and the EmoJar application,
also developed in the context of the AWESOME
project (Chambel et al., 2023). In this paper, we
emphasize this new perspective centered around
personal and shared autobiographical memories,
connecting or tying media with life events and the
people involved, by the name of As Ties Go By.
Memories can be registered in a personal space,
like in a journal; and also shared in groups, like fam-
ily or friends, at the time they happened, not nec-
essarily when they are registered. In each of these
spaces, memories can be represented in different per-
spectives. Main features are described next, and
illustrated in Figs. 1-2, exemplifying navigation.
Sharing and Accessing Autobiographical Memories Tied with Media
677

Figure 1: As Ties Go By - MemoTime View in “My Memories” Space: (a) MemoTime view (1st tab on the top) showing
timeline with memories, and exemplifying the access to a memory detail below the timeline; (b) MemoTimeSpiral view.
Memory Spaces: When users first land in the
application, they are met with their own memories in
the ”My Memories” personal space (Fig. 1a). They
can switch to their group memory spaces (e.g. “The
Smiths”, Fig. 2b), choosing from a scrollable list on
the left, below the identification of the current space.
Memory Views:
The first View displayed when
users enter a memory space (Fig.1) is MemoTime:
Memory markers are placed chronologically on the
dates they occurred on an horizontal timeline,
offering a familiar and comprehensive overview of
time within the memory space. For an alternative
perspective, based on spirals (Weber et al., 2001),
aligned with the “cyclic” representation identified in
the user survey, and the annual circle we go around
the sun: users can switch to the MemoTimeSpiral
View (Fig. 1b), accessible in the MemoTime tab.
Time flows from the bottom to the top of the spiral,
each lap representing a year. This design highlights
temporal patterns within the memory space, such as
recurring events like summer holidays or Christmas.
On MemoMap View (Fig. 2b) users have a world
map, where they can see the memories in the places
they happened, depending on the zoom used in this
Google Maps view. Like in the other views, filters can
be applied, here with a geographical perspective.
On MemoJar View (Fig. 2a), inspired by EmoJar
(Chambel and Carvalho, 2020), users add their
memories to a happiness jar, and later revisit them, to
remember or relive a happy or treasured memory;
with a twist of serendipity, by randomly picking one.
Memories: In all the Views, memories are
represented by pins, markers, with shape dependent
on media type (circles for music, inspired by cd or
vinyl music records; and squares for movies, inspired
by celuloid film frames); and the color of the main
emotion associated with that memory, based on
Plutchik’s model of emotions (Caldeira et al., 2003).
When clicking a memory pin, it gets highlighted in
the view, and its details appear below (Fig. 1a, 2a,b).
The memory title is followed by its date; location; or
pins reflecting the media type and dominant emotions
(highlighting in front of the title the one that
corresponds to the current Memory View, and
presenting the other ones below; along with author,
media content, and a brief description written by the
user. Music and movies can be accessed via As
Music Goes By (Fig. 2b-c-d), with the opportunity to
access more information and songs contextualized in
movie soundtracks.
To create a new memory, users click the ”Add
Memory” button, below the active tab view, openning
a pop-up form for inputting memory details. After
saving, the memory appears in the various memory
view tabs. Users can also edit memories, openning a
similar form pre-filled with the current details.
Memory Filters: select content to be displayed
on the different Memory Views, for more focused
perspectives and understanding of memory spaces, in
2 types: Media filters accessible via 2 labeled
buttons: Music & Movies, beneath the memory space
list; Hashtag filters in a dropdown list below the
media filter buttons allow users to select one or more
hashtags for filtering. These can signify various
themes like holidays, birthdays, or summer vacations.
Notifications: based on time and space. Users are
notified about memory anniversaries and memories
that happened close to their current location. Users
can click on them to access corresponding memories:
the memory pin and the details below (Fig.2b).
See Figure captions
for more detailed descriptions
of the exemplified navigation among different views.
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678

Figure 2: As Ties Go By – MemoJar and MemoMap Views, Notifications and Access to Music and Movies: (a) MemoJar
View’s ’Pick Random’ button retrieves a memory: (b) MemoMap View, transitioning from the personal to a group Memory
Space (“The Smiths”), then receiving a location-based notification, and by clicking on it, the notified memory of The Smiths
Family is accessed with details, below, and highlighted in a close-up of the map, where it happened, in relation to the current
user location, near by; this memory is about the first ball of the user’s grand parents, where they danced to the song Smoke
Gets in Your Eyes; (c) Accessing the memory song: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes to watch and navigate it, in As Music Goes
By (Moreira and Chambel, 2019): first contextualized in its different versions; and (d) playing the song by the Platters.
5 USER EVALUATION
A preliminary user evaluation was conducted to
assess perceived usefulness, usability, and user
experience in the As Ties Go By interactive features.
Methodology: A task-focused evaluation was
carried out using semi-structured interviews and
direct observation as users interacted with the
application and all its features. Before the tasks,
participants were introduced to the evaluation’s
purpose, answered demographic questions, and
received a brief overview of the application. The
evaluation was based on USE (Lund, 2001), assessing
the perceived Usefulness, Satisfaction, and Ease of
Use for each task on a 5-point scale. After the
evaluation, users were asked to provide an overall
assessment of the application through a global USE
rating, and encouraged to identify their favorite
features, suggest potential improvements, and
describe the application’s perceived qualities,
selecting predefined ergonomic, hedonic and appeal
terms (Hassenzahl et al., 2000).
Participants: The evaluation involved 10
participants, 6 males and 4 females, ages 22-48,
average 30.3. 4 held bachelor’s degrees, 3 had
master’s degrees, 1 had a technical degree, and 1
completed high school. Professionally, they worked
in informatics, health, psychology, business, physics,
and education. All familiar with digital applications
to some extent. Music consumption habits: 9 listened
to music daily, 1 a few times per month, using:
Spotify (7 participants), YouTube (4) and Apple
Music (2). Movie consumption: 5 watched movies 2-
3 times per month, 3 weekly, and 2 monthly. They
also reported using streaming services like
SkyShowtime, Prime Video, Disney+, and Netflix.
Sharing memories: 4 occasionally document or save
important moments, 3 monthly and 3 weekly.
Memory-sharing: 4 occasionally, 3 weekly, and 3
daily. Almost all (9 out of 10) agreed that storing and
sharing memories with family and friends was
important or very important, and 8 found it easy or
very easy to connect memories to media content like
music and movies; overall highlighting the relevance
of the platform’s purpose.
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679

Results: The users completed all tasks efficiently
and with minimal hesitation, overall having a positive
experience with the application, with main features
highlighted in Figs. 1 and 2; and the USE results
summarized in Table 1.
Table 1: USE evaluation of As Ties Go By by feature.
Scale:1-5: lowest-highest); M=Mean; SD=Std. Deviation
U S E
F# Feature
M SD M SD M SD
1 MemoTime view (mean)
4.3 0.8 4.3 0.7 4.7 0.6
1.1 MemoTime 4.4 0.7 4.5 0.5 4.8 0.4
1.2 MemoTime Spiral 4.1 0.9 4.0 0.9 4.5 0.7
2 Filters (mean)
4.6 0.6 4.8 0.4 5.0 0.2
2.1 Media Filters 4.6 0.6 4.8 0.4 5.0 0.0
2.2 Hashtag Filters 4.5 0.5 4.8 0.4 4.9 0.3
3 Memor
y
Entr
y
Creation
4.9 0.3 4.8 0.4 4.7 0.5
4 MemoMap View
4.8 0.4 4.9 0.3 4.9 0.3
5 MemoJar View
3.7 0.9 4.0 0.8 4.9 0.3
6 Notifications (time&place)
4.5 0.5 3.5 0.7 4.8 0.4
7 Access to Music&Movies
4.2 0.5 4.3 0.4 4.0 0.8
8 Memory Spaces (mean)
4.7 0.4 3.6 0.8 4.8 0.5
8.1 Memory Spaces: Types 4.5 0.5 3.5 0.7 4.8 0.4
8.2 Memory Spaces: Creation 4.9 0.3 3.7 0.9 4.7 0.5
Total by Feature (mean)
4.6 0.6 4.3 0.6 4.7 0.4
Global Evaluation
4.3 0.4 4.1 0.9 4.6 0.6
Global Evaluation: Overall, participants rated the
application quite positively in terms of usefulness
(U:4.3), satisfaction (S:4.1) and especially ease of use
(E:4.6). Interesting to note that, in spite of high scores
for other features during the evaluation, at the end,
when asked about preferences, they especially
enjoyed features that are more specific to what As
Ties Go By is all about: MemoTime and MemoMap
views, time and location-based Notifications, and the
contextualized Access to Music and Movies from
memories. As final suggestions, they highlighted the
importance of developing further mobile features and
related notifications, citing benefits like easier real-
time capture of moments; and improving media
connections to services like IMDb and Spotify.
Table 2: Quality terms users chose for As Ties Go By.
H: Hedonic; E: Ergonomic; A: Appeal;
bold: more frequent; italics: negative terms
Terms type # Terms type #
Original H 8 Innovative H 3
Understandable E 7 Aesthetic A 3
Simple E 7 Attractive A 3
Interestin
g
H 6 Predictable E 2
S
y
m
p
athetic A 6 Trustworth
y
E 2
Pleasant A 5 Unaesthetic A 1
Goo
d
A 5
Finally, users were asked to describe the applica-
tion using quality terms (Hassenzahl et al., 2000),
results in Table 2. The chosen terms are reasonably
well distributed among the (H)edonic, (E)rgonomic
and (A)ppeal qualities. Original was the most chosen
term; then Understandable and Simple; Interesting
and Sympayhetic, then Pleasant and Good, all chosen
by half or more subjects. Just one negative term
chosen: Unaesthetic (by 1 subject), but superseded by
the opposite positive term: Aesthetic (by 3). These
results align and complement the feedback from the
feature evaluation and the user comments.
6 CONCLUSIONS AND
PERSPECTIVES
This paper addressed the concept and introduced
interactive means to capture, visualize and link
memories with media, such as movies and music,
along time and space, with an emotional impact, and
the potential to enhance memory recall and foster
deeper connections, by sharing important memories
and moments that happened in our lives with others,
like family and friends. User feedback in the
evaluation highlighted features like MemoTime,
MemoMap, notifications and access to music and
movies as particularly engaging; with most chosen
quality terms including Original, Interesting,
Sympathetic, Pleasant, Simple and Understandable;
and the application received quite good ratings in
usefulness, satisfaction, and ease of use. Quite
relevant and encouraging as a proof of concept, with
potential for future developments
Future work includes refining, based on the
evaluation and user feedback, and further extending
the interactive features. In particular, main challenges
and perspectives for the future include:
To explore further the spiral representation, in 3D,
and other time representations, and extend search,
based on time and emotions (Caldeira et al., 2023) in
this context. To go beyond a web application to
include a dedicated mobile app with seamless
crossplatform functionality and native notification
support, to improve flexibility and engagement. To
extend the notifications, beyond time and space,
taking into account the emotions associated with the
memories and felt by the users, and other contextual
information, including ambient music detection to
trigger related memory recall in serendipitous ways.
To go towards user-generated content at a larger
scale, and consider integrating and accessing media
content in larger platforms like IMDb and Spotify.
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680

To allow memories to have richer ways for user
expression in this context; linking to songs on the
movies’ soundtracks; and the possibility of having
trajectories, instead of a static position, on the map.
In group spaces there is a potential challenge of
having different versions or perspectives of the same
events. Who is right or how can they cohexist as
shared memories? Approaches like Storytelling could
be explored here, with interactive digital narratives,
for its adequacy in complex, causal and multi-
sequential stories (Silva et al., 2021). This type of
biographical information could as well be explored in
reminiscence therapy with potencial benefits in social
interactions and self-esteem.
Finally, it is also important to account for privacy,
while providing significant ties involving memories
with media.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was partially supported by FCT through
the AWESOME project, ref. PTDC/CCIINF/29234/
2017, and the LASIGE Research Unit, ref. UIDB/
00408/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00408/
2020) and ref. UIDP/00408/202 (https://doi.org/10.
54499/UIDP/00408/2020).
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