Providing Distinctive Cues to Augment Human Memory

Previous research in our lab (Tan, Stefanucci, Proffitt & Pausch, 2001) demonstrated that a multimodal prototype computer system, the InfoCockpit, could increase users’ memory of information compared to a standard desktop computer. Displaying information on multiple monitors with ambient visual and auditory dispays engages context-dependent memory and memory for location, thus facilitating recall. We replicate this finding and isolate the memory cues to find whether the combination of contextual information and spatial location is necessary to obtain this memory advantage. Our findings show that contextual information alone provides users with the best strategy for later recall.