Assisting Cognitive Recall and Contextual Reuse by Creating a Self-Describing, Shareable Multimedia Object

Abstract

Digital media elements, or digital assets, are used to illustrate things such as images, sounds, or events. As humans, we use many senses to assist our cognitive processes, and providing multiple representations will enhance our ability to store, recall, and synthesise the knowledge and information contained in the digital asset. This chapter introduces a model for a multimedia object, that allows multiple representations to be managed, and includes a structured metadata file describing the asset that captures the original context. Humans are capable of classifying and describing millions of such objects, but recalling context and content often blurs over time. Computer systems provide us with a way to store electronic objects, and with a variety of representations and sufficient metadata they can be used to assist cognitive recall.