Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Our ability to re-experience the events from our personal past tends to decline with age, which can have profound effects on well-being. HippoCamera is a smartphone-based application developed to mitigate age-related decline by guiding users to record and review cues for real-world events using established mnemonic strategies, with previous work demonstrating improved episodic recollection and enhanced hippocampal activity following use. Here, we followed-up with older adult participants who had used HippoCamera several years prior to investigate whether any benefits persisted following use. Using a mixed-methods approach, we found stronger subjective re-experiencing of events that were recorded with HippoCamera compared to those that were not. Further, participants reported extended benefits to their overall sense of meaning and well-being. These results provide preliminary evidence characterizing the long-lasting effects of a smartphone-based tool that improves memory for everyday events in aging.