Capturing, Reviewing, and Interpreting Photos: Ecological Values of Lifelog Photos

Abstract

매초 자동으로 사진을 찍는 착용형 라이프 로깅 카메라가 도입되면서, 사진의 의미는 변화하게 되었다. 사진을 찍기 위해서 기존에 요구되었던 카메라를 꺼내고 초점을 맞추어 원하는 순간에 셔터를 눌러야 했던 수고로움이 필요 없게 되었다. 이에 라이프 로그 사진의 특징을 기반으로 사용자가 기존의 point-and-shoot 카메라를 통해 찍었을 만한 사진들을 선별하는 알고리즘 개발에 초점을 맞추어 사용자의 대량의 데이터에 대한 접근성을 향상하기 위한 연구가 주로 이루어져 왔다. 그러나, 라이프 로깅 카메라는 개인의 의도나 피사체에 대한 선호와 무관하게 개인의 일상을 모두 촬영하기 때문에, 기존과는 다른 특징을 가진 사진들을 수집하고 리뷰하게 한다는 점에서 기존의 point-and-shoot 카메라와는 다른 차원의 사용자경험을 전달할 수 있다고 할 수 있다. 이에 본 연구는 라이프 로깅 카메라의 촬영 방식이 기존의 point-and-shoot 카메라 대비, 1) 사진 촬영, 2) 사진 리뷰, 그리고 3) 사진 공유에 이르는 프로세스에 어떤 영향을 미치는지 파악하여 라이프 로그 사진의 특이점을 기반으로 라이프 로깅 카메라 시스템 설계 요인을 제안하고자 하였다. 이에 본 논문은 사용자 연구를 통해 라이프 로깅 카메라의 경우 무미건조한 일상을 수집하며, point-and-shoot 카메라와는 달리 초점을 맞추고, 사진의 프레임을 결정하는 정교한 프로세스가 부재하기 때문에, 라이프 로그 사진에 대한 해석의 범위가 리뷰하는 시점의 피실험자의 상황에 의해 민감하게 변화하며, 보다 추상적이고 상징적인 의미 (i.e., iconological meaning)를 형성하게 되면서, 과거의 상황을 재해석하게 함을 확인할 수 있었다. 또한, 이러한 iconological 의미를 갖는 라이프 로그 사진이 제 3자의 조망 수용 (i.e., perspective taking)을 유도함을 확인할 수 있었다. 본 연구는 사용자 개인의 사용경험뿐만 아니라, 제 3자와의 공유 경험에 있어서 라이프 로깅 카메라만의 가치를 검증 함으로써, 라이프 로깅 카메라 개발 시 고려해야 하는 요인들에 대해 제시하고자 한다.; The point-and-shoot action of the camera typically includes an intention to capture memorable moments. In contrast, a lifelogging camera automatically captures almost every life moment in a continuous manner. Therefore, a large portion of the lifelog photos have only the factual information, only briefly showing what the users did during their daily life, but it does not include any personal meaning. In this regard, people may elicit different meanings from the lifelog photos compared to the photo taken by a point-and-shoot action. The aim of this thesis is to explore how the automatic shot of the lifelogging camera could deliver a novel user experience during their photo activities, especially when capturing, reviewing, and sharing phases. Therefore, we conducted two studies to identify the unique characteristics of the lifelog photos in an individual (i.e., capturing, and reviewing) and social (i.e., sharing) perspectives. In an individual perspective, we conducted a 200-day longitudinal user study to examine the difference between the lifelog photos and the manually captured photos in both the capturing and reviewing phases. In order to achieve our research objective, we have investigated what types of events are captured by the lifelogging camera versus the point-and-shoot camera, and how people create different meanings via the lifelog photos compared to the manually captured photos as time passes. The findings from the research show that the lifelogging camera tends to capture what people are genuinely reluctant to take a photo, such as an emotionally neutral event that are not related to their close social relationships. This suggested that the absence of the point-and-shoot action would provoke many different ways of the reviewing process, compared to the manually captured photos that tended to focus on describing special and pleasant memorable moments with close family members and friends. The study also identified that people elicit more symbolic meanings (i.e., iconological meaning) from the lifelog photos than the manually captured photos as time passes. The process encouraged people to reinterpret the past moments with different perspectives through mental time travel. On the other hand, the meaning of manually captured photos did not change over time. That is, the manually captured photo has normative value embedded in the initial meaning that is determined when it was taken. However, the lifelog photos have ecological value that is dynamically changed dependent on the circumstances in which the people reviewed. This process allows the viewers of the lifelog photos to freely interpret the photo and to reflect their past with different points of view that may have not been recognized before. In a social perspective, the second study was conducted to examine how each users personal and meaningful experience (i.e., sharer) in the lifelog photos could be effectively delivered to a third person (i.e., receiver). We identified that the lifelog photos with personally symbolic (i.e., iconological) narrative triggered the receiver’s perspective taking on the sharer’s lifelog photos. Based on the understanding this unique characteristics of lifelog photos in capturing, reviewing, and sharing phases, this study highlighted that the lifelog photos could give opportunities to users to create rich interpretations on the past moments that could support one’s emotional well-being. Moreover, the study noted that the enriched data of lifelog photos could provide a social value to a third person when it could deliver the iconological meaning of the lifelog photos. The result of these studies will support the concept to design a lifelogging camera application that could create personal and social values.