Edinburgh Napier University

  This paper reports some preliminary work on the
IntoMyWorld candidate Presence II project. One of the key
components of IntoMyWorld is a mixed reality ‘album’ of
important events. The album will contain entries which will
allow people, for example, to re-immerse themselves in
their own weddings or other significant events. Among our
first tasks are (a) to understand the salient features and
dimensions of events which must be captured and (b)
identify the range of environmental cues required to trigger
memories and re-immersion. Our psychological position
has been draw upon contemporary thinking on
autobiographical memory and add to this aspects of
schema theory. Schema theory claims that memories are
encoded and recalled in structured packets that have ‘slots’
which can store either default or individual values. While
psychologists have studied schemata and have
experimentally manipulated their formation and recall, we
propose to activate them using technology. The
IntoMyWorld system will make use of situated, interactive
schemata to help trigger memories and with this a sense of
being present once more at specific events and places. In
this initial work we consider some of the issues in recreating
a significant event in the lives of our parents and
grandparents, namely VE day – May 1945