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There is substantial evidence from behavioral economics and decision sciences demonstrating that in the context of decision-making under uncertainty, the carriers of value behind actions are gains and losses defined relative to a reference point (e.g. pre-action expectations), rather than the absolute final outcomes. Also, the capability of early predicting session-level search decisions and user experience is essential for developing reactive and proactive search recommendations. To address these research gaps, our study aims to 1) develop reference dependence features based on a series of simulated user expectations or reference points in first query segments of sessions, and 2) examine the extent to which we can enhance the performance of early predicting session behavior and user satisfaction by constructing and employing reference dependence features. Based on the experimental results on three datasets of varying types, we found that incorporating reference dependent features developed in first query segments into prediction models achieves better performance than using baseline cost-benefit features only in early predicting three key session metrics (user satisfaction score, session clicks, and session dwell time). Also, when running simulations by varying the search time expectation and rate of user satisfaction decay, the results demonstrate that users tended to expect to complete their search within a minute and showed a rapid rate of satisfaction decay in a logarithmic fashion once surpassing the estimated expectation points. By factoring in a user's search time expectation and measuring their behavioral response once the expectation is not met, we can further improve the performance of early prediction models and enhance our understanding of users' behavioral patterns.
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Understanding users' dynamic perceptions of search gain and cost in sessions: An expectation confirmation model
Abstract Understanding the roles ofsearch gainandcostin users' search decision‐making is a key topic in interactive information retrieval (IIR). While previous research has developed user models based onsimulatedgains and costs, it is unclear how users' actualperceptions of search gains and costsform and change during search interactions. To address this gap, our study adopted expectation‐confirmation theory (ECT) to investigate users' perceptions of gains and costs. We re‐analyzed data from our previous study, examining how contextual and search features affect users' perceptions and how their expectation‐confirmation states impact their following searches. Our findings include: (1) The point where users' actual dwell time meets their constant expectation may serve as a reference point in evaluating perceived gain and cost; (2) these perceptions are associated with in situ experience represented by usefulness labels, browsing behaviors, and queries; (3) users' current confirmation states affect their perceptions of Web page usefulness in the subsequent query. Our findings demonstrate possible effects of expectation‐confirmation, prospect theory, and information foraging theory, highlighting the complex relationships among gain/cost, expectations, and dwell time at the query level, and the reference‐dependent expectation at the session level. These insights enrich user modeling and evaluation in human‐centered IR.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2106152
- PAR ID:
- 10515408
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
- Volume:
- 75
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2330-1635
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 937-956
- Size(s):
- p. 937-956
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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