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We investigate a speculative future in which we celebrate happiness by capturing laughter and representing it in tangible forms. We explored technologies for capturing naturally occurring laughter as well as various physical representations of it. For several weeks, our participants collected audio samples of everyday conversations with their loved ones. We processed those samples through a machine learning algorithm and shared the resulting tangible representations (e.g., physical containers and edible displays) with our participants. In collecting, listening to, interacting with, and sharing their laughter with loved ones, participants described both joy in preserving and interacting with laughter and tension in collecting it. This study revealed that the tangibility of laughter representations matters, especially its symbolism and material quality. We discuss design implications of giving permanent forms to laughter and consider the sound of laughter as a part of our personal past that we might seek to preserve and reflect upon. Figure 1. Left: A delicate bottle preserving laughter. Opening the lid releases the laughter inside. Middle: A jar preserving multiple instances of laughter. Right: Chocolate pieces representing quantity and quality (e.g., belly laugh, giggle) of laughter. CHI 2018 Paper CHI 2018, April 21-26, 2018, Montréal, QC, Canada Paper 358 DESIGN PROCESSWe began our design exploration by brainstorming, sketching, and mocking up a variety of representations. In exploring representations of laughter, we grappled with questions around what constitutes a single laugh and considered variables such as a laugh's duration, frequency, and intensity. We thought about higher-level sound qualities such as those of a deep belly chuckle vs. a higher pitched giggle. Finally, we reflected on how very personal and unique the sound of each person's laugh can be, especially to their loved ones.

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Soundtracks play an important role in carrying the story of a film. In this work, we collect a corpus of movies and television shows matched with subtitles and soundtracks and analyze the relationship between story, song, and audience reception. We look at the content of a film through the lens of its latent topics and at the content of a song through descriptors of its musical attributes. In two experiments, we find first that individual topics are strongly associated with musical attributes, and second, that musical attributes of soundtracks are predictive of film ratings, even after controlling for topic and genre.