Because I simple can’t remember triple grande 3 pump non-fat no-whip Cinnamon Dulce Latte

When working at Starbucks for a couple months, one of the biggest challenges I faced was trying to remember the drinks that customers ordered and then repeating it in the order that was only satisfactory to Starbucks standards. This order being # of shots, then the size, then type of syrup, then type of milk, then any custom attribute like whip or no whip and THEN the actual drink – yes I know, quite a handful. It also didn’t help that I only worked 2 days out the week and would often forget parts of my training upon returning to work the following week.

In having this project now, I wonder if perhaps my work experience could have been enhanced had I been introduced to Second Life earlier. This in many ways became one of my research questions, and in response to this project I created an avatar that would aid me in my inability to recall words in a specific order.

In hearing the past two lectures, few of the points that really stood out in my mind were 1) Gayatri’s notion of chunked memory and how that can be a very effective tool in retrieving information as in the case of phone numbers which are separated by dashes to aid in remembering these arbitrary strings of numbers.
2) Brian’s talk about semantic memory which is the memory of meanings, words and conceptual knowledge non-specific to any event and how this is preserved in patients irrespective of amnesia.

Keeping this information in mind, I looked at tools like mnemonics link systems which chunks arbitrary words together by creating an association between the individual elements. For instance, random words like cell phone, car, and socks could be linked in a mnemonic story like my cell phone was ran over by a car and as a result I buried my dead cell phone in a sock.

A visual mnemonic link system would then be a string of words linked together through a memorable and absurd imagery, which also creates a story. In my case, for example, the words of shot, size, syrup, milk, custom, drink could be translated into an image of a camera taking a shot of my dwarf-sized, maple-printed cow drinking a whipped latte.

Using our understandings of words like shot, size, syrup, etc and replacing it with connoted imagery heightens the absurdity of the story and also makes it much more memorable. Through features and functions, like building and wearing objects, texture mapping, sending snapshots to email, my avatar will be able to play out the absurd imagery and have its appearance archived in the form of email for future reference. It is also quite possible now to actually print out your 3d avatar in a 3D form (see www.fabjectory.com). This could very well be another option to have my second life stay connected to my real Life.