The effects of spatial layout on relationships between performance, path patterns and mental representation in a hypermedia information search task

Objective: Searching the Internet for health-related information is a complex and dynamic goal-oriented process that places demands on executive functions, which are higher-order cognitive abilities that are known to deteriorate with older age. This study aimed to examine the effects of older age on electronic health (eHealth) search behavior, and to determine whether executive functions played a mediating role in that regard. Method: Fifty younger adults (≤ 35 years) and 41 older adults (≥50 years) completed naturalistic eHealth search tasks involving fact-finding (Fact Search) and symptom diagnosis (Symptom Search), a neurocognitive battery, and a series of questionnaires. Results: Multiple regression models with relevant covariates revealed that older adults were slower and less accurate than younger adults on the eHealth Fact Search task, but not on the eHealth Symptom Search task. Nevertheless, executive functions mediated the relationship between older age and eHealth Fact Search and Symptom Search accuracy. Conclusions: Older adults can experience difficulty searching the Internet for some health-related information, which is at least partly attributable to executive dysfunction. Future studies are needed to determine the benefits of training in the organizational and strategic aspects of Internet search for older adults and whether these findings are applicable to clinical populations with executive dysfunction.

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In quest of goldilocks ranges in searching for information on the web

Journal of Documentation ◽

10.1108/jd-01-2021-0019 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Anna Matysek ◽

Jacek Tomaszczyk

Keyword(s):

Information Search ◽

Design Methodology ◽

Search Task ◽

Web Searching ◽

Content Type ◽

Scientific Disciplines ◽

Preliminary Study ◽

The Right ◽

User Experiment ◽

Practical Implications

PurposeThe quest to discover optimal conditions or amounts has been carried out in many scientific disciplines and practical fields. In astrophysics, biology, medicine, psychology and education, the quest has resulted in finding the right amount of something, a desirable middle between extremes, a balance between conditions or the optimal state of a system. The results are referred to as the Goldilocks principle, which is based on the idea of being “just right”. The aim of our study was to find out if there are any measures in information search that could be identified as Goldilocks ranges.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted a user experiment in which 68 participants carried out a time-unlimited, topical search task involving finding relevant websites on the basis of which the participants were supposed to prepare a presentation on a given topic. We examined aspects of their search behavior.FindingsWe found that information search Goldilocks ranges can be identified for a length of a search session, number of relevant results, number of queries submitted and number of search engine results pages (SERPs) visited. This preliminary study has resulted in indicating the following dominant ranges: Number of relevant documents found: 5–8; Time spent searching: 21–35 min; Number of queries submitted: 3–7; Number of SERPs viewed: 1–3.Originality/valueTill now, no one has studied Goldilocks ranges in information retrieval. The Goldilocks ranges have some practical implications for improving the effectiveness of web searching.

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Model of Making Decisions during an Information Search Task

Research in Computing Science ◽

10.13053/rcs-105-1-15 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 105 (1) ◽

pp. 157-166

Author(s):

Francisco López-Orozco ◽

Luis D. Rodríguez-Vega

Keyword(s):

Information Search ◽

Search Task

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The translator as cartographer

Target ◽

10.1075/target.19169.zho ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-25

Author(s):

Leonora Min Zhou

Keyword(s):

Chinese Text ◽

Mental Representation ◽

English Translation ◽

Cognitive Maps ◽

Systematic Investigation ◽

Spatial Layout ◽

The Novel ◽

Spatial Cues ◽

Content Type ◽

The World

Abstract The concept of a cognitive map has been borrowed from psychology by literary scholars to denote the mental representation of the spatial layout of (a) storyworld(s). The classic Chinese novel 紅樓夢 Hongloumeng ‘The Story of the Stone’ (also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber) is particularly well-known for its topographic representation of a storyworld of self-contained totality and detailed veracity. Using David Hawkes’s English translation of the novel and various materials from his notebooks, this article demonstrates the translator’s (mental) cartographic effort to conjure up ‘maps in mind’ in response to the textual spatial cues. I argue that Hawkes’s cognitive maps offer explanations to some translational performances that have been too readily glossed over as insignificant. The article also aims to chart a new path forward for systematic investigation into the significance of the translator’s imaginative participation in ‘the world inside the text’, for the sake of an enriched understanding of translation, both as a product and a process.

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Entity Type Disambiguation in User Queries

Journal of Information & Knowledge Management ◽

10.1142/s0219649211002948 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 10 (03) ◽

pp. 209-224 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Barbara Bazzanella ◽

Heiko Stoermer ◽

Paolo Bouquet

Keyword(s):

Information Search ◽

Bayesian Model ◽

Search Task ◽

Specific Information ◽

Internet Search ◽

Search Query ◽

Entity Search ◽

Beneficial Impact ◽

Primary Means ◽

Important Activity

Searching for information about individual entities such as persons, locations, events, is an important activity in Internet search today, and is in its core a very semantic-oriented task. Several ways for accessing such information exist, but for locating entity-specific information, search engines are the most commonly used approach. In this context, keyword queries are the primary means of retrieving information about a specific entity. We believe that an important first step of performing such a task is to understand what type of entity the user is looking for. We call this process Entity Type Disambiguation. In this paper, we present a Naive Bayesian Model for entity type disambiguation that explores our assumption that an entity type can be inferred from the attributes a user specifies in a search query. The model has been applied to queries provided by a large sample of participants in an experiment performing an entity search task. The beneficial impact of this approach for the development of new search systems is discussed.

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What Factors other than Age Predict Performance on An Information Search Task?

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/154193120605000206 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 50 (2) ◽

pp. 195-199

Author(s):

Sara J. Czaja ◽

Joseph Sharit ◽

Sankaran N. Nair

Keyword(s):

Information Search ◽

Search Task

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Voice Assistant vs. Chatbot – Examining the Fit Between Conversational Agents’ Interaction Modalities and Information Search Tasks

Information Systems Frontiers ◽

10.1007/s10796-021-10226-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christine Rzepka ◽

Benedikt Berger ◽

Thomas Hess

Keyword(s):

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Laboratory Experiment ◽

Customer Service ◽

Information Search ◽

Search Task ◽

Cognitive Effort ◽

Research Model ◽

Conversational Agents ◽

Search Tasks ◽

Task Technology Fit

AbstractOwing to technological advancements in artificial intelligence, voice assistants (VAs) offer speech as a new interaction modality. Compared to text-based interaction, speech is natural and intuitive, which is why companies use VAs in customer service. However, we do not yet know for which kinds of tasks speech is beneficial. Drawing on task-technology fit theory, we present a research model to examine the applicability of VAs to different tasks. To test this model, we conducted a laboratory experiment with 116 participants who had to complete an information search task with a VA or a chatbot. The results show that speech exhibits higher perceived efficiency, lower cognitive effort, higher enjoyment, and higher service satisfaction than text-based interaction. We also find that these effects depend on the task’s goal-directedness. These findings extend task-technology fit theory to customers’ choice of interaction modalities and inform practitioners about the use of VAs for information search tasks.

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