Memory Matching in Support of Interpersonal Communication

Although intelligent environments can tend to reduce their users to passive consumers, they also generate information that a system can leverage for the support of rich interpersonal communication. The CONVERSATIONPIECE project builds on research by the contributors and others on the construction of artificial personal memories, the sharing of experience, and social matching. By performing memory matching on the artificial memories built up for two individuals within an instrumented environment, a CONVERSATIONPIECE system will suggest topics of common interest and bring about communication that would otherwise not have taken place. The design and development process will be user-centered, comprising a study of scenarios and user requirements, iterative design and testing of the user interaction and the internal processing, and evaluation in a naturalistic setting. The ultimate goal is for the basic conception to be transferred to a variety of types of intelligent environment.