The clicking behavior and text-emitting behavior of the user is analyzed to determine what responses on the part of the system are most likely to be reinforcing to the user, and which are therefore most likely to result in reinforcers for the information provider. NLP and other computational techniques can, at the same time, reduce costs to the search provider by reducing the amount of searching done by users. As users interact with such a system, the system provides increasingly dense reinforcement schedules. Web Site as Operant Chamber A Web site could be considered an operant chamber. In many ways it resembles a pigeon box.
Users click buttons, icons, whatever.
Computer software is notoriously bad at analyzing verbal behavior and determining appropriate responses. Posted a message on the Behav-AN discussion group. Sent email to all of my behavioral friends and acquaintances, and some that are not so behavioral. Some kind soul forwarded my Behav-AN posting to the Verbalbeh discussion list. My group at AOL will almost certainly end up hiring a traditional cognitive NLP person.