Using the Social of Tagging: The Interplay of Social Tags and the Strength of Association in Navigation and Learning Processes

Using the Social of Tagging: The Interplay of Social Tags and the Strength of Association in Navigation and Learning Processes Christoph Held (c.held@iwm-kmrc.de) Knowledge Media Research Center, Konrad-Adenauer-Strasse 40 72072 Tuebingen, Germany Ulrike Cress (u.cress@iwm-kmrc.de) Knowledge Media Research Center, Konrad-Adenauer-Strasse 40 72072 Tuebingen, Germany Abstract When people navigate through the World Wide Web they choose their path of navigation based on their prior knowledge. This may be problematic when users have a deficient knowledge leading them to suboptimal information. In this study we examined how the externalized knowledge of social tags can be used to change navigation behavior and to trigger learning processes. In an online experiment with 531 participants we investigated the effect of the individual strength of association on navigation processes, and how the collective strength of association, visualized in tag clouds, may affect individual navigation and the strength of association. Results showed the effect of individual strength of association on navigation behavior, selection time and recognition. Furthermore, we found that the collective strength of association affects navigation behavior and triggered incidental learning processes, leading to a change of individual strength of association. Keywords: social tagging; tag clouds; social software; information foraging; web search; incidental learning Introduction People frequently use the World Wide Web for information and product search. In some topic domains, Web users may only possess deficient prior knowledge and an incomplete view of relevant aspects. A user’s knowledge may, however, be critical for the search process and the information which is retrieved from the Web. The Web offers enormous quantities of heterogeneous information and products, and each user will have to select between different links and keywords for finding relevant resources. When users follow navigation links based on their deficient prior knowledge these may lead to information which will confirm or even reinforce the deficient knowledge of that user. For example, users might associate the treatment of a disorder with some specific medication. Instead of considering other treatments or medications a user may quickly select a navigation path leading to information which reinforces potentially deficient knowledge saying, for instance, that a specific medication is the only reasonable treatment. This might happen when navigating to a website from a pharmaceutical company. So, on the one hand, the mass and the diversity of resources available on the Web is combined with the risk that people might select suboptimal information or products. On the other hand, new tools may provide the opportunity to use the mass of available information on the Web to improve individual navigation and to adjust and change the users’ previously deficient prior knowledge. In this paper we address the research question how social tags, as emerging collective information, can affect the individual process of navigation and how social tags trigger learning processes during navigation. In particular, we focus on situations in which the externalized knowledge of social tags contradicts the prior knowledge of users. The next chapter will provide a theoretical overview on Web navigation and its interrelation with spreading activation, followed by an overview on social tagging and how it may interact with cognitive processes. As a next step we will present an experimental study on the effects of social tags and the strength of association on navigation and knowledge acquisition. Theoretical Background Information Foraging Theory A pivotal cognitive theory of Web navigation is the Information Foraging Theory (Pirolli, 2007; Pirolli & Card, 1999). It explains selection processes of links and navigation paths on the Web, the so-called “information foraging”. Taking for granted that many search tasks on the Web require browsing activities in order to find a desired resource (Marchionini, 2006), users will have to select between different links and navigation paths. They will have to decide which link may lead to a desired – and not directly accessible – distal resource, say, a piece of information on some Web site. When navigating the Web users have to make judgments based on proximal cues (e.g., links) and assess which of these cues have the highest likelihood of leading to a desired distal resource. One of the core concepts of the Information Foraging Theory is the so-called “information scent” of links. The information scent describes the subjective usefulness of links for navigation. Links with a subjectively high probability of leading to a desired distal resource have a high information scent and are very likely to be selected in the search process. How will users estimate the information scent of links? Spreading Activation Understanding how people evaluate the information scent of a link is closely related to models of semantic memory and spreading activation (e.g., Anderson,