Method and Apparatus to Encourage Development of Long Term Recollections of Given Episodes

Abstract

These teachings are applicable for use with an individual who faces problems with respect to forming new long term memories. Generally speaking, pursuant to these various embodiments, one automatically captures (101) a record of experiential content to which the individual is exposed during a given episode and then automatically associates (102) that record of experiential content with metadata that characterizes the given episode. This record of experiential content is then automatically used (103) to re-expose the individual to at least portions of the given episode to thereby encourage development of a long term recollection of at least a portion of the given episode. These teachings will accommodate a variety of experiential content modalities including both audio content and visual content.

We claim: 
     
         1 . An apparatus for use with an individual who faces long term memory challenges comprising:
 a memory having stored therein:
 a record of experiential content to which the individual was previously exposed during each of a plurality of given episodes; and 
 metadata corresponding to at least one of the individual and corresponding ones of the plurality of given episodes; 
   an end user interface;   a processor operably coupled to the memory and the end user interface, and being configured and arranged to:
 re-expose the individual, via the end user interface, to a particular one of the plurality of given episodes; 
 receiving feedback from the individual regarding at least one subject of the particular one of the plurality of the given episodes while re-exposing the individual to the particular one of the plurality of given episodes; 
 assessing accuracy of the feedback as a function of the metadata to metricize the accuracy of the feedback to provide metricized accuracy of the feedback; 
 evaluating the individual's long term memory as a function, at least in part, of the metricized accuracy of the feedback. 
   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the metadata comprises location information. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the metadata comprises medical sensory information corresponding to the individual. 
     
     
         4 . The apparatus of  claim 3  wherein the medical sensory information comprises at least one of:
 heart rate information; 
 blood pressure information; 
 perspiration information; 
 blood sugar level information. 
 
     
     
         5 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the metadata comprises calendar-based information. 
     
     
         6 . The apparatus of  claim 5  wherein the calendar-based information comprises a scheduled appointment. 
     
     
         7 . The apparatus of  claim 6  wherein the scheduled appointment comprises a doctor's appointment for the individual. 
     
     
         8 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the metadata includes metadata from an experience capture device that provides the experiential content. 
     
     
         9 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the experiential content comprises audio content. 
     
     
         10 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the experiential content comprises visual content. 
     
     
         11 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the experiential content comprises automatically-captured experiential content.