Sonic Gems: Exploring the Potential of Audio Recording as a Form of Sentimental Memory Capture

This paper presents an exploratory study exploring the potential of audio recording as a form of sentimental memory capture. Drawing on data from four family households, we spotlight participants’ attitudes towards sounds and audio recording, their existing recording practices and the types of sounds that they record when given a digital sound recorder. The findings indicate that a variety of different sounds were important, for a diversity of reasons. The paper considers participants’ experiences of listening back to sounds, illuminating some of the unique affordances of audio recordings as a form of sentimental memory capture. The paper finishes by exploring the design challenges which the study raises for the capture, playback and archiving of sentimental audio.