Memories through Touch – project update 1

Welcome to the fourth in Lyes Oussaiden’s blog series of reflecting on his Alzheimer Scotland Student Research Programme journey throughout the ‘Memories through Touch’ project.

We gratefully acknowledge the RS MacDonald Trust for its generous support of this Master’s studentship.

Welcome to the fourth in my series of blogs detailing my progress of ‘Memory through Touch.’

This month I’m going to highlight a slightly different, more personal perspective to Memory through Touch.

The Graduate School at Abertay University is a key aspect of my day-to-day life as a funded research student of Alzheimer Scotland and RS Macdonald. I’ve found the school to be a fantastic space. Unlike other bigger universities, post-graduate students at Abertay work from the same office regardless of discipline. It makes for an exciting and interesting place to share knowledge worlds apart from my field of research. However, in earnest, there are far more similarities than I was expecting. There are shared ‘minutia,’ or small details, that everyone’s projects have in common regardless of methodology or approach. It’s the personal things, the feeling of being ahead, or falling behind (despite being perfectly on top of things) that make the space feel very tight knit yet welcoming. I have sat in seminars beside folk researching fingerprints, beside someone else researching the scientifically optimal level of crispiness for biscuits. We share all the same triumphs and anxieties.

With my previous work as a lecturer, I understand the importance of diversity in learning. It is what has led me to doing this project; in understanding that my background as a games practitioner can be valuable for vastly different communities, I have learned that academic games practice is directly beneficial for those outwith the academic community.
There is a field of games practice referred to as ‘Applied Games’. (There’s a slim chance you may have of heard Serious Games or Games for Good before, which fall under this umbrella.) In essence, this is a classification of games that can be developed or used for purposes other than, or in addition to, entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Such media typically has a specific message to tell, or a certain objective to complete. Companies have used applied games to train staff, activists have used serious games to communicate a political message, and – indeed – this project aims to create an unintrusive and helpful applied game that helps to improve the quality of life for people living with early-to-mid stage dementia via reminiscence.

Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but in practice this ‘helpfulness’ can be difficult to communicate. For the past couple months, I’ve been trying to find a way to navigate this. In recruiting for my research, I discovered a quiet apprehension regarding the project from participants who appear to be otherwise intrigued. Largely, this was from my delivery of the details of the project. At times, folk have perhaps found it challenging to understand how conversations over coffee can drive the project forward leading to low interest in participation. For a co-designed and highly involved project, this was a pressing issue.

I presented a talk to undergraduate students about regularly having to pivot. (Indeed, some of these have been covered in earlier blogs!) This is natural for exploratory research projects such as this, but understanding this from an emotional standpoint has been challenging. The message of the lecture I delivered – which was aimed at Game Design & Production students completing their honours – was that, as designers, we are used to exploring and pivoting but this can be easily forgotten when it comes to research. There’s a whole concept of “killing your darlings”, where weaker ideas can be removed from a project without consequence. (This is ingrained from day-dot as a student of game design practice.) In academia, this process can and should be important, but it feels vastly different. Any little idea could lead to a major breakthrough and it’s more difficult to understand the potential pros and cons. Most academics want to ensure we’re doing a good thing, doing the ‘right’ thing even. However, this project is an exploration: there isn’t an optimally right or wrong answer with such an open-ended provocation, when it’s more valuable to understand needs and find a solution that could be helpful.

There is an underlying and often counterproductive ‘need’ to find legitimacy through making the research project overly complex. Sometimes this is necessary. In my case the ‘written’ theory aspect of the project grew arms and legs requiring diagrams to explain. It just took revisiting the initial aims of the project to open the door to acceptance. Of course participants would be apprehensive; when asked about the project, I shared an overly complex and indirect answer about what it was I was doing. From the perspective of the blog and the funders, nothing changes. However, I am a lot more confident in my process. It’s clear what I’m doing. The past couple months have been spent ‘trimming the fat’, so to speak, and I feel like I’m in a much better place.

As a result, participants are much more confident in the project and I now have some data! However, I’m still in the earlier stages of the data collection phase. So, if you or someone you know enjoys reminiscence and would like to lend 30-60 minutes of your time to contribute towards this research project, please contact l.oussaiden1900@abertay.ac.uk.
Thank you for reading and make sure to check back in next month!

Best,
-Lyes Oussaiden