Personal Cognitive Trainer

1. Summer Institute in Bioengineering and Health Informatics Personal Cognitive Trainer Urooj Ahmad Charlene Staff Aisha Yousuf Advisors: Fatma Mili and Brian Goslin

2. Introduction • U.S. Census Bureau - largest increase in global population by 2050 would be elderly [23]. • Less young people to care for the elderly. Therefore, older people must maintain healthy independent lives. • Cognitive fitness is vital to a healthy, happy, and independent life.

3. Role of Technology • Baby Boomers are technology savvy. • Technology plays a major role in keeping people healthy and compensate for losses. • “Developing technologies for the future of aging is as much an imagination problem as a technology problem.” • Dishman, Founder Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST)[3]

4. BackgroundandMotivation

5. Age Related Decline • Decline occurs gradually throughout life and is noted in old age due to accumulation [17] • Decline occurs both physiologically and behaviorally.

6. Physiological Decline • There is decrease in the volume of the cortex of the brain [18] • Both gray and white matter decline [18] • Dedifferentiation: To compensate for brain volume decline, more brain sites are recruited in older adults [17]

7. Behavioral Decline • Impairments occur even after dedifferentiation is implemented. • Older adults have hard time linking memory to context or an event. [17] • Older adults have hard time switching between tasks due to distractions [17]

8. However… • Seattle Longitudinal Study shows that we don’t decline as early as previously though [20] • Training can significantly improve cognition at any age [19] • SLS showed that 2/3 of all the subjects had improvement in cognition. • 2/5 of all the subjects with 14 years of significant decline returned to pre-declined level.

9. SLS training was delivered on a one-to-one basis making it costly and impractical on a large scale. A computerized cognitive trainer can be widely available while giving the same individual attention

10. Cognitive Science Research • Most of the approaches of assessing and training for cognitive fitness were inspired by the works of Thurstone [22] and Weschler [24].

11. Thurstone’s Seven Primary Mental Abilities

12. Associative Memory • Ability to store and recall a memory by its contents • Tested using immediate and delayed recall

13. Spatial Visualization •Allows us to navigate in a 3D world and to interpret 2D representations. •Testing methods include solving mazes and differentiating several configurations of an object.

14. Personalization • Personalization is based on a few key research findings: • People can remember things better if they can relate to them [7] • People remember things in terms of categories and events. [5] • Multiple Indexing by combining context with pictures or verbal elaborations has shown significant improvements in memory of younger and older adults. [4]

15. So… • By multiple indexing personal information with categorization, a powerful training strategy can be devised!

16. Personal Information Management (PIM) • Vast amount of information stored on a personal computer is often neglected or ignored [13] • It is observed that the information is only stored on the computer if it has some use for the future [8] • By utilizing personal information, user will be reminded about information stored on the PC enhancing memories about his/her personal experiences

17. However, individuals differ in their styles of information management and storage. [10] • This must be kept in mind when extracting information from a personal computer.

18. Approach

19. Research Questions • The system developed will be used to investigate the following: • Can daily training affect cognitive health? If so, with what regimen? • Can onset of decline be detected? Predicted? • Would game performance affect performance in real life? • What are the effects of personalization?

20. System Design Guidelines • Embrace Technology • Technology savvy aging population is eager to embrace technology in order to improve quality of life • Preserve Independence • Game should adjust to allow the user to keep playing independently

21. System Design Guidelines Continued • Support Aging with Dignity • Target a wide range of users to avoid associating elderly with dependence and disability • A Leisure Activity • People who engage in intellectual leisure activities maintain cognitive fitness longer[21]. • System should be a leisure activity, hiding the real purpose of cognitive training.

22. System Architecture • The plan for the system design is to have one game for each of Thurstone’s seven mental abilities • Multiple games will be generated for the user everyday • Each game will be personalized using the personal profile

24. System Features • Besides playing game, the user can: • View past performance trend • View information about the games • Update some parameters • Play game recommended by the trainer or select a different game or level. • System will inform and encourage the user why he/she should play what’s recommended

25. Sources of Personal Information • Files and Folders • Contents rich source of info but computationally prohibitive to analyze • Names serve our purpose • Directory Structures • How person classifies • Pictures • Names and Display

26. Sources of Personal Information • Browser History and Cookies • What user is interested in and the level of interest • Email • Contents also computationally prohibitive to analyze • Addresses specify user affiliations, education, org, etc • User’s global affiliation • Computer Usage • Which software used and how often

27. Implementation

28. Game Selection • Factors influencing Game Design • The games should look exciting and appealing. • The games should always offer something new. • Also, the games should have a positive reinforcement method. • The system is called Brain Aerobics

29. Demonstration

30. Personalization Integration • Objective • Personalize with little or no time investment by the user. • Maintain the user’s privacy.

31. Personalization Used • Personalized Vocabulary • Extracted from computer • Personalized Semantics • User’s association with word • Personalized without user’s knowledge • Pictures • Displayed and names used • User Performance • Accounts for cognitive and physical disabilities

32. Profile Data Mining • Everyone organizes things differently • To account for this discrepancy, the user is asked to specify file paths accomplishing two tasks: 1. Gaining user trust by maintaining privacy. 2. Save computation time on scanning the whole computer. • User will also be allowed to specify when to scan the computer

33. Development Environment • Macromedia Flash • Capable of incorporating desired graphics and animations. • Easy to integrate game logic using Action Script. • More customizable with layout • While Flash can work with graphics it is not capable of scanning a personal computer for information extraction.

34. In order to scan the personal computer C++ was used. • C++ allows creation of a stand-alone system • High processing speed • Widely documented • The final C++ program was stored in .exe form which was called by Flash when needed.

35. Conclusions • Brain Aerobics is unique because it is personalized • Overcomes shortcomings of all prior training methods that did not involve one or more of the following • Technology • Applicability to all ages • Wide availability • Design as a leisure activity

36. References • Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Age. • Brain Train. http://www.braintrain.com • Center for the Aging Services and Technologies (CAST). http://www.agingtech.org/. • K. E. Cherry, D. C. Park, D. A. Frieske, and A. D. Smith. Verbal and Pictorial Elaborations Enhance Memory in Young and Older Adults. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, Vol. 3, No. 1, pages 15-29, 1996. • E. Cutrell, S. T. Dumais, and J. Teevan. Searching to Eliminate Personal Information Management. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 49, No. 1, pages 58-64, 2006. • L. Hasher and R. T. Zacks, Working memory, comprehension, and aging: A review and a new view. In G. H. Bower, editor. The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 22, pages 193-225. Academic Press, 1988.

37. A. Holbrook, M. Berent, J. Krosnick, P. Visser, and D. Boninger. Attitude Importance and the Accumulation of Attitude-Relevant Knowledge in Memory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 88, No. 5, pages 749-769, 2005. • W. Jones. Finders, Keepers? The present and future perfect in support of personal information management. First Monday, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2004; http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9 3/jones/index.html • D. Kalev. Facilitate Directory Operations with the <dirent.h> and <dir.h> Libraries. DevX.com Articles, http://www.devx.com/cplus/10MinuteSolution/26748, 2005. • D. Kelly. Evaluating Personal Information Management Behaviors and Tools. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 49, No. 1, pages 84-86, 2006. • Kirupa.com Flash Tutorials. http://www.kirupa.com/. • L. L. Liu and D. C. Park. Technology and the Promise of Independent Living for Older Adults: A Cognitive Perspective. In K. W, Schaie and N. Charness, editors. Impact of Technology on Successful Aging, Springer Publishing Company, 2003.

38. C. Marshall and J. William. Keeping Encountered Information. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 49, No. 1, pages 66-67, 2006. • C. S. Murray, J. Everett Church. Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Game Programming. Premier Press, 2004. • Office of Technology Policy of the Commerce Departments Technology Administration, Technology and Innovation in an Emerging Senior/Boomer Marketplace, 2005 White House Conference on Aging, 2005. • D. C. Park and A. Gutchess. Aging, cognition, and culture: A neuroscientific perspective. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, Vol. 26, No. 7, pages 859-867, 2002 • D. C. Park, T. A. Polk, J. A. Mikels, S. F. Taylor, and C. Marshuetz. Cerebral aging: integration of brain and behavioral models of cognitive function. Dialouges in Clinical Neuroscience, Vol. 3, No. 3, pages 152-165, 2001. • N. Raz. Aging of the brain and its impact on cognitive performance: Integration of structural and functional ¯ndings. In F. I.M. Craik and T. A. Salthouse, editors. Handbook of Aging and Cognition - II, pages 1-90, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000.

39. K. W. Schaie and S. L. Willis. Can decline in adult intellectual functioning be reversed? Developmental Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 2, pages 223-232, 1986. • Seattle Longitudinal Study, http://geron.psu.edu/sls/ • A. Singh-Manoux, M. Richards, and M. Marmot. Leisure activities and cognitive function in middle age: evidence from the Whitehall II study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol. 57, No. 11, pages 907-913, 2003. • L. L. Thurstone. The Primary Mental Abilities, University of Chicago Press, 1938. • U.S. Census Bureau. Global Population at a Glance: 2002 and Beyond. http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/wp02-1.pdf. • D. Wechsler. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-revised, Psychological Corporation, 1981.

40. Paper Submitted The 3rd ACM Workshop on Capture, Archival, and Retrieval of Personal Experience (CARPE 2006) October 27, 2006 Santa Barbara, California “Personalization of a Cognitive Trainer”

41. Questions