Social Reminiscence Research Articles

Walking and Social Reminiscence in Gentrifying Neighborhoods: Feasibility and Impact on Cognitive, Physical, and Mental Health Among Older Black Adults in the SHARP Study.

Two exploratory 6-month pilots of triadic walking with culturally celebratory social reminiscence in gentrifying neighborhoods tested feasibility and health impact among normal and mildly cognitively impaired (MCI) older Black adults. Fourteen triads walked 1-mile 3×/week, using a navigational application with image-based reminiscence prompts. Focus groups evaluated perceived health impact and experience. Primary outcome measures were program evaluations (feasibility), pre-post self-report health, Montreal Cognitive Assessment, blood pressure, and weight. Analysis used mean rank scores for program evaluations, pre-post paired t-tests for health outcomes, and thematic coding for 30 focus groups. Feasibility: Retention was 74% and 86% for pilots, and 100% and 92%, respectively, were "extremely likely" to recommend to friends/family. Mean rank scores indicated appropriate pace and dose, effective conversational prompts, and program readiness with minor changes. Health impact: Self-rated health, mood, activity levels, and energy improved, days feeling downhearted decreased, and days feeling calm/peaceful were maintained or improved. Among Cohort 2, cognitive assessment scores were maintained or improved for 67%; for MCI, 76% had mean improvement of 2.4 (p = .045). Blood pressure and weight decreased for 78% and 44%, respectively. Focus groups: Perceived impact of triadic walking included increased physical and social activity outside the program, increased awareness of cognitive decline risk and personal agency, and deep-seated sense of community connection. Triadic walking provides structure, accountability, connection, and purpose, motivating sustained engagement. Walking programs that center socialization, particularly within culturally meaningful contexts, may be more effective among older Black adults. NCT05906654; NCT05906667.

An Underdeveloped Metaphor: The Mismatched Designs and Motivations of Digital Picture Interactions

Picture interactions are key to daily and long-term social connections between families and communities, especially through reminiscence. Across the nearly 200-year history of domestic photography, this social reminiscence has been accomplished largely through photo albums. However, in the now common digital setting, albums are pushed aside for the endless film roll metaphor. In this article, we explore this metaphor through the 20-year history of proposed digital picture interactions from Human–Computer Interaction research, and compare this to ongoing interactions with modern picture tools. Through these, we reveal that this prominent design metaphor does not create space for social reminiscence, but does fit the novel use of immediate sharing seen across social networking. Furthermore, the endless and ever-growing nature of digital film rolls are not meaningfully browsable for either intended use. We close by reconnecting to the past works that explore the broad potential of digital pictures.

Social Reminiscence in Older Adults' Everyday Conversations: Automated Detection Using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning.

BackgroundReminiscence is the act of thinking or talking about personal experiences that occurred in the past. It is a central task of old age that is essential for healthy aging, and it serves multiple functions, such as decision-making and introspection, transmitting life lessons, and bonding with others. The study of social reminiscence behavior in everyday life can be used to generate data and detect reminiscence from general conversations.ObjectiveThe aims of this original paper are to (1) preprocess coded transcripts of conversations in German of older adults with natural language processing (NLP), and (2) implement and evaluate learning strategies using different NLP features and machine learning algorithms to detect reminiscence in a corpus of transcripts.MethodsThe methods in this study comprise (1) collecting and coding of transcripts of older adults’ conversations in German, (2) preprocessing transcripts to generate NLP features (bag-of-words models, part-of-speech tags, pretrained German word embeddings), and (3) training machine learning models to detect reminiscence using random forests, support vector machines, and adaptive and extreme gradient boosting algorithms. The data set comprises 2214 transcripts, including 109 transcripts with reminiscence. Due to class imbalance in the data, we introduced three learning strategies: (1) class-weighted learning, (2) a meta-classifier consisting of a voting ensemble, and (3) data augmentation with the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) algorithm. For each learning strategy, we performed cross-validation on a random sample of the training data set of transcripts. We computed the area under the curve (AUC), the average precision (AP), precision, recall, as well as F1 score and specificity measures on the test data, for all combinations of NLP features, algorithms, and learning strategies.ResultsClass-weighted support vector machines on bag-of-words features outperformed all other classifiers (AUC=0.91, AP=0.56, precision=0.5, recall=0.45, F1=0.48, specificity=0.98), followed by support vector machines on SMOTE-augmented data and word embeddings features (AUC=0.89, AP=0.54, precision=0.35, recall=0.59, F1=0.44, specificity=0.94). For the meta-classifier strategy, adaptive and extreme gradient boosting algorithms trained on word embeddings and bag-of-words outperformed all other classifiers and NLP features; however, the performance of the meta-classifier learning strategy was lower compared to other strategies, with highly imbalanced precision-recall trade-offs.ConclusionsThis study provides evidence of the applicability of NLP and machine learning pipelines for the automated detection of reminiscence in older adults’ everyday conversations in German. The methods and findings of this study could be relevant for designing unobtrusive computer systems for the real-time detection of social reminiscence in the everyday life of older adults and classifying their functions. With further improvements, these systems could be deployed in health interventions aimed at improving older adults’ well-being by promoting self-reflection and suggesting coping strategies to be used in the case of dysfunctional reminiscence cases, which can undermine physical and mental health.

Notes of memories: Fostering social interaction, activity and reminiscence through an interactive music exergame developed for people with dementia and their caregivers

ABSTRACT This paper presents the outcomes of an exploratory study focused on the evaluation of an interactive music exergame for People with Dementia (PwD) and their caregivers. PwD tend to isolate themselves from the outside world, therefore carers need to develop strategies to maintain communication with them. Studies indicate that music–based activities provide an effective way to achieve social interaction with PwD. At the same time, physical activity plays a major role in dementia-related interventions because it can slow down progression and provide meaningful stimulation. Our developed interactive music game bounds these two concerns together; we evaluated the system afterwards regarding its individual and social impact and its integration into the daily routines of both PwD and their caregivers, focusing on its capacity to provide both enjoyment and relief from some of the effects of dementia. Qualitative data collected over 4 months confirmed the valuable impact of music-based interventions of PwD. Of particular note was how PwD used the game to improve or maintain their physical condition while recovering past memories and an interest in social interaction.

Reminiscence in Everyday Conversations: A Naturalistic Observation Study of Older Adults.

We examined older adults' social reminiscence behavior in everyday life, and the relation between reminiscence functions and well-being. The sample included 2,164 sound snippets that included speech from 45 healthy older adults. We examined reminiscence in daily conversations using the Electronically Activated Recorder. Across four days, we collected a random sample of about 280 sound files (30 seconds long) per participant. Participants' utterances were coded for whether they included reminiscence, for their functions and conversation partners. Participants completed mood and life satisfaction measures. Participants reminisced in 5% of their utterances (range: 0%-29%). They reminisced in 40% of cases with friends, 32.8% with their partner and 8% with their children/relatives. Three reminiscence functions were observed: identity, teaching/informing, and conversation. Participants' reminiscence served the identity function while they were reminiscing with their partner and children. Participants reminisced to teach/inform while reminiscing with their children and strangers. Reminiscing for conversation occurred mainly with partner and friends. We found positive relations between life satisfaction and identity, teach/inform, and conversation functions. Mood had a negative relation with identity and teach/inform functions. This is the first study to take a naturalistic observation approach to reminiscence and to build on self-report data.

Reflection of urban space in Iranian cinema: A review of the last two decades

Cinema as an influential mass medium continuously represents different spaces, environments, events, and symbols, and through which it reproduces viewers’ social reminiscence and merges imagination and reality in a constant manner. This paper attempts to illuminate the outlook of Iranian cinema on urban spaces (In this paper, urban space means “outdoor space” or “open space.” However, our purpose of applying the term “urban space” is an emphasis on the word “urban.” This includes what is connected with a city and its spaces and buildings, residents, and even social, economic, and political issues.), and to analyze the quality of their representation during the last two decades (1979–2006). Identifying displayed urban spaces and determining their strength and limitations, this endeavor not only offers guidelines on urban design pedagogy but also examines impacts of cinema on audiences’ visual literacy and perception, thereby exploring their expectations of urban environment.Based on content analysis of selected movies, we find that the Iranian films only occasionally involve urban spaces, and if they do, this practice is confined to historical or cultural spaces. This failure could be attributed to the poverty of urban spaces and limitations facing the film industry in such spaces on the one hand, and lack of the directors’ appropriate understanding of contemporary urban spaces and their mere attention to nostalgic spaces on the other hand.

Reminiscence and mental health: a review of recent progress in theory, research and interventions

ABSTRACTThis article explores recent progress in theory, research and practical applications of reminiscence. It first describes the evidence for reminiscence as a naturally occurring process, and discusses the different functions of reminiscence and their relationships with mental health and lifespan processes. Three basic types of reminiscence that relate to mental health are specified: conversations about autobiographical memories and the use of personal recollections to teach and inform others have social functions; positive functions for the self include the integration of memories into identity, recollections of past problem-solving behaviours, and the use of memories to prepare for one's own death; negative functions for the self are the use of past memories to reduce boredom, to revive bitterness, or to maintain intimacy with deceased persons. It is proposed that in interventions the three types are addressed differently: simple reminiscence stimulates social reminiscence and bonding and promotes positive feelings; life review uses the positive functions to enhance personal wellbeing; and life-review therapy seeks to reduce the negative uses and thereby alleviate symptoms of mental illness. Studies of the effectiveness of interventions have provided some evidence that interventions are effective in relation to their goals. The review closes with recommended directions for future reminiscence research.

Using Social Reminiscence to Teach Therapeutic Communication Skills

The nursing profession universally accepts the premise that effective communication skills are essential for RNs to function in any health care environment. This article discusses the use of social reminiscence as a teaching tool to encourage the development of these skills. Various approaches to teaching effective communication skills that have been discussed in the literature are described and evaluated. The rationale for social reminiscence to enhance communication is presented, and the teaching/learning experience is described. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of using social reminiscence as a teaching tool are discussed. (Geriatr Nurs 2000;21:315-8)

Occupational Stress in Social Work

Faith Gibson was educated at the Universities of Sydney, Queensland and Chicago in Humanities, Social Work and Education. She has practised in mental health, remedial education and residential settings. She is presently a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Ulster at Coleraine where she teaches and researches in social work theory, staff development and therapeutic reminiscence in late life. Anne McGrath took a degree in Psychology followed by three years post-graduate work. She worked for two years as a lecturer in a further education college, and is currently working as a Research Assistant in the Centre for Applied Health Studies, University of Ulster. Norma Reid took degrees in mathematics and statistics and worked in health research for three years at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, before taking up a post in the London School of Economics as a Lecturer in Social Statistics. She has worked in health research since 1978, mainly non-clinical nursing research, and was Director of the Centre for Applied Health Studies, University of Ulster from 1984 until 1987, when she took up post as a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics in the University. SUMMARY This article reports the results of a study of occupational stress undertaken with a large sample of Northern Ireland field social workers, including both main grade practitioners and first line senior social work managers employed as team leaders. This study formed part of a wider interprofessional study of social workers, nurses and teachers; publications for the latter two professions along with interprofessional comparisons are in preparation and this present article focuses on the social worker cohort. The design and methods are described and demographic characteristics of the social work sample are provided, with their views about social work. Stressors are identified in both professional and private lives. The effects of stress as manifested through the General Health Questionnaire and the Maslach Burnout Inventory are examined and the social workers' views on various stress coping strategies are discussed.