02/02

Testing 1

In the very first test in the proposal that i did on myself, i borrowed the approach from the [2013 paper] very loosely, this time i structured it more beforehand and made a protocol for myself, a structuring the whole session. Here is the protocol of the first session, with added feedback notes i put in right after in italics:

//First Journey Test Notes (Test Subject 1)

• Setting: Comfortable room, supplying food and drink. 

• Step 0: Explaining the overall structure of the project as primer

//Phase 1: Memory Identifaction

• Ask to identify 15 memories and write them down very roughly, explain what we’re looking for: “Positive, Self-affirming memories that contain feelings, impressions, ideas about yourself, that you often don’t have available in moments of mental health struggle”

• Give a bit of time (they needed about 15-20 min. to come up with memories), i was still in the same room, available, but did something else to give them space

• Work throughthe memories one by one, ask to deepen the memory with giving cues like: “Dive back into the memory” “What did everything look like, smell like, feel like” “What did you feel in your body at that moment?” “What was that like in that moment exactly” “Try to access the specific images of that memory”, and let them spend reminiscing with eyes closed for a short time (~30-60 sec.). I left it open for them to talk about their impressions or let them keep it to themselves.

• After each reminiscing ask for a short ID phrase to note down, to identify/cue the memory later. This was easy, it was mostly just the short note they took at the beginning to note down the memory for themselves in the first place.

• Take a break. 

> Feedback Phase 1: 

• Affect: Nice feeling in the belly, warmth, excitement, motivation to do nice things

• At times not easy to keep the reminiscing “emotionally clean”, to not get melancholic with thoughts like “it’s never going to be like that again”

• Gratitude, it feels like nothing is missing in life and in these memories, content

> Further Notes:

• Remind people to make “I” statements, not “We” statements

• Make a pause inbetween recalls (maybe halftime, its intense!)

• Time the Recall? (Test duration? Or is this too stressful?)
  

//Phase 2: Palace Construction

• Go into VR, explain what’s going to be the goal and the Controls

• “In VR you will build your very own Mind Palace. You can place rooms as you like, to bridge the gaps between the platforms. Afterwards you will put Objects into the rooms, 15 total. Then we will associate the memories you just identified with these objects, coming up with weird, bizarre, interesting images connecting the object with the memory. This will make what we call a “Memory Journey”. Through the recognizability of the space and the objects within, you will be able to effortlessly move within your palace mentally along the route, with the objects in the right order and the connected memories available”

> Went very well, the participant did understand the controls pretty well pretty quickly, things like taking the room spawner with them in the left hand, teleporting with the right hand, moving held objects with the stick, etc. They have been in VR twice before.

• Ask people narrative-building questions like “Why is this here? Why is the next thing after that?”) to let them build a casual internal narrative for the space

> The participant intuitively made a kind of internal narrative in the palace, both while placing the rooms and the objects. “I put the camera here, because i will need it on my trip up the mountain to make pictures of the view”. This lends very well to the technique, but i would assume not every user would have this intuition automatically.

• Take a break (go out of VR)

• Do one or more recall tests

> Made two recall tests, one complete, and one with starting somewhere in the middle, both worked with 1-2 mistakes that i corrected. So remembering the palace worked reasonably well for this participant right after construction even without further training.

> Feedback & Notes Phase 2:

• Seemed to be fun in an explorative way

• Kinda hard to build cleanly connected stuff

• The colors of the inbetween islands were more confusing than helpful (take out)

• The vertical distance is too much between the rooms, also freezing room rotation to xz plane might be good, people could get nauseous bc of the tilt, also it can be a bit messy/janky with the rotation placement!

//Phase 3: Anchoring

• Go back into VR, explain how the anchoring works: “We will walk through the palace start to finish in order and associate each object with one of the memories. For every pair i want you to come up with an image that connects the object to the memory. The more bizarre the better! For example, you could place the object super large within the memory or have it interact with the scene of the memory somehow.”

• read the memories one by one, ask for a connecting image each time, make suggestions if the participant has difficulties

> Due to some fatigue with being VR for such a long time, we did this step in front of the screen instead. I flew through the palace in the Unity editor in order, noted the Loci and read out the ID for the corresponding Memory, and asked for a connecting image. This worked without further problems, i only made a suggestion once. I noted everything down, to have all the objects, rooms, memory IDs for later use.

//End Feedback & Recall

• End of the session, final recall test of palace, objects and memories. We did it with eyes closed, the recall worked effortlessly, the subject could recite all anchors without mistakes, also backwards and from the middle in either direction worked right away.   

• Asking the participant for how they’re doing (end checkin, see if they’re okay emotionally)

• Asking the participant for feedback

Feedback & Notes End

> Intense

> VR was percieved as very immersive and novel, fun and curiosity-inducing

> Controls a bit janky

> Not as uncanny as expected, the nuclear plant room maybe a bit because of the connotation, but it was okay

> Some rooms with lots of stone seemed to be a bit hard to remember / to find specific corners to remember in (like the rocky mountain path), but it was fine when objects were placed inside

> Intro Stairs & Hub were good as intro

> Make more clear that the inbetween islands dont matter for memorization! 

//Recall Sheet & Later Feedback

After the test, i put together a recall sheet, for the participant to train with or jog their memory in case they forget something. I sent it to them and asked them to see if they could remember everything, in that moment they could. Further i contacted them again four days later, and got a full and working recall aswell. This gave me confidence that mid- to longer-term recall would be generally possible.  

Further Feedback (German, translation below):

“Als ich’s grad durchgelesen hab, ist mir aufgefallen dass ich den Hammer/Nuclear Plant und den Burger/Statue vergessen hatte, aber sonst hatte ich alles noch und es war nice es zu recallen. Habe mich nicht ganz so im Moment drin gefühlt wie als wir die Erinnerungen gesammelt hatten, aber ich hätte es wahrscheinlich gekonnt wenn ich mir bewusst die Zeit dafür genommen hätte, ich war eher focused die IDs quasi zu erinnern, nicht sich nochmal reinzufühlen aber es war trotzdem nice die Erinnerungen ein bisschen präsenter zu haben dadurch”

English Translation: 

“As i was just looking at it again, i realized that i’d forgotten the Hammer/Nuclear Plant and the Burger/Statue, but apart from that i still got everything and it was nice to recall. Did not feel quite as much in the moment as i was feeling while we were collecting the memories, i was rather focused on remembering the IDs, not feeling into it as much, but it was nonetheless nice to have the memories a bit more present.”

[01]

First testing hub

Combining objects

Making strong narrative images with the objects and rooms

Everyday things become significant memory markers

Up on the ledge: Position of objects helps remembering

First memory journey recall sheet (anonymized)

Full Memory Journey of first round of testing (translated and anonymized):

Memory Journey 1 (Eng, anonymized)

Important specifics that have been anonymized, like names and places are put into [square brackets]

• Start at Hub

• Small German Town Mainstreet:

  • L1: Croc shoes on Trashcan; ID: Newyears Friendgroup Celebration Field;
    > Memory: New years’ celebration with friendgroup on a field, feeling of connectedness
    > Connection: Everyone is drinking from crocs, is wearing crocs, fireworks in croc-shape

  • L2: Metal Bin in the middle of the street; ID: Buzzcut [Partner Name] [City] Flat
    > Memory: Getting a buzzcut spontaneously for the first time by a partner, feeling euphoric afterwards
    > Connection: Leaning over the bin, the hair falling into it

• Rocky Path:

  •  L3: Big Pile of shredded Cheese; ID: Orchard
    >Memory: romantic picnic date with partners at a secret orchard in spring >Connection: Shredded cheese on the trees instead of apples, also eating cheese

  • L4: Leather Chair with Maxwell the Cat (a known meme); ID: [Friend’s] birthday party at the river
    >Memory: Careless joyful birthday celebration late into the night at a campfire at the river in the summer
    >Connection: The leather chair also stood in the circle around the fire, the cat was also a member of the group and drank & partied too

  • L5: Leatherbag on a ledge; ID: Themepark in winter
    >Memory: Journey to a themepark in winter with partners, having a good time
    >Connection: The sandwiches brought to the trip coming out of the bag, everyone being stoic businessmen with leatherbags in the rollercoasters

•  Plaza:

  • L6: Chillarea with better chair; ID: Coming Out Groupchat
    >Memory: Posting a coming out message in a group chat, getting nice and kind feedback
    >Connection: Huge phone sitting in the chair holding a tiny test subject

  • L7: „Joy“ on the fountain; ID: [Name of a party] Euphoria
    >Memory: Visiting and being involved in the planning of a larger party, feeling joyful, connected, energized
    >Connection: Wordplay “Joyphoria” [Name of party]

  • L8: Camera before rocky path; ID: San Francisco Queer Party
    >Memory: At a queer party in San Francisco with a partner, joyful
    >Connection: Main song playing at the party was “Photograph” by Nickleback

• Rocky Path

• Museum:

  • L9: Special urn on column; ID: Meeting [Friend] for the first time
    >Memory: Spontaneously crashing at an internet friend’s place and meeting them for the first time, after on the way to a concert where tha car broke down
    >Connection: Broken Urn, as broken as the car, [friend] lifting it over their head, drinking from it and thus ritually establishing the friendship

• European Medieval Ruins:

  • L10: Picnic with two pots and bananas; ID: Way back from [city] visit, belonging
    >Memory: On the way back to the car at [City], reflecting on the newly met people there, feeling of belonging
    >Connection: People from [City] grouped together like a bundle of bananas, stems growing from their head

• Row of arcs filled with fishing equipment

• Nuclear Plant:

  • L11: Hammer in front of control panel; ID: [Friend] Bikeride Lightness
    >Memory: Being taken on the bicycle in the back by a friend, feeling of lightness and freedom
    >Connection: The bike is broke, [friend] whips out the hammer and beats it violently back into shape, it sparkles and is perfectly repaired

• Rondell:

  • L12: Vase around neck of staute, small mouse on it’s head; ID: [town] stealing turnips
    >Memory: vacation with partners, stealing a turnip from a nearby field at night, very funny and carefree
    >Connection: The small rat controlled everyone like in the movie “Ratatouille” to steal the turnip

• Jungle Ruins:

  • L13: Statue eats Burger; ID: Zootycoon with [Friend]
    >Memory: Playing the game “Zootycoon” with a childhood friend for tze first time, being super fascinated
    >Connection: Being able to buy a big stonehead ingame, like an animal, you have to feed it burgers

• Historic Stairs:

  • L14: Hedgehog watches over stairs; ID: [Traditional Holiday Celebration] at [Prior Job] in [City]
    >Memory: Being part of the [Traditional Holiday Celebration] at a fromer workplace that was very nice, great team feeling
    >Connection: The hedgehog also celebrating, in traditional garb

  • L15: Trophy shows the way back to the hub; ID: Waves in Spain, Beach
    >Memory: On a family vacation in spain, diving through the waves
    >Connection: Poseidon appears from the waves, and awards a trophy for good diving!