Total Recall: Re-experiencing Moments via Smell

During my time with The University of Chicago’s Human-Computer Integration Lab, I co-wrote and edited a later-accepted grant proposal for Snap Inc.’s Snap Creative Challenge, which aimed to bring HCI & AR researchers together to devise and design technology that would allow us to “re-experience the past, in the future [in multi-sensorial ways].” Our project created a novel pipeline that capitalizes upon the visceral connection between memory and smell. When a user takes a picture, smell-related keywords are combined with the photo’s metadata; when the user recalls this moment by looking at photos, our device delivers a representative odor so that they experience the memory by not only seeing it, but also smelling it.