Abstract

Reminiscence plays an important role in the lives of older adults [8]. Many perfect the art of storytelling and enjoy its social benefits. The telling of stories of past events and experiences defines family identities and is an integral part of most cultures.Losing the ability to recollect past memories is not only disadvantageous, but can prove quite detrimental, especially to many older adults. In this paper we introduce MemoryLane, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) based application being developed to enhance the reminiscence capabilities of older adults. Using abilities and preferences as a basis, MemoryLane employs Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to adapt its multimodal interface to accommodate the needs of differing older users and to compose and recount user life-cached multimedia as memory stories.