XRMM

Memory Manipulations in Extended Reality

Human memory has notable limitations (e.g., forgetting) which have necessitated a variety of memory aids (e.g., calendars). As we grow closer to mass adoption of everyday Extended Reality (XR), which is frequently leveraging perceptual limitations (e.g., redirected walking), it becomes pertinent to consider how XR could leverage memory limitations (forgetting, distorting, persistence) to induce memory manipulations. As memories highly impact our self-perception, social interactions, and behaviors, there is a pressing need to understand XR Memory Manipulations (XRMMs). We ran three speculative design workshops (n=12), with XR and memory researchers creating 48 XRMM scenarios. Through thematic analysis, we define XRMMs, present a framework of their core components and reveal three classes (at encoding, pre-retrieval, at retrieval). Each class differs in terms of technology (AR, VR) and impact on memory (influencing quality of memories, inducing forgetting, distorting memories). We raise ethical concerns and discuss opportunities of perceptual and memory manipulations in XR.

🎉🎊 Congrats to Elise for Honorable Mention 🏆 at CHI’23! 🎇🎏

Elise Bonnail, Wen-Jie Tseng, Mark Mcgill, Eric Lecolinet, Samuel Huron, and Jan Gugenheimer. 2023. Memory Manipulations in Extended Reality. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 875, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580988