Footprints of information foragers: behaviour semantics of visual exploration
Chaomei Chen, Timothy F. Cribbin, Jasna Kuljis, Robert D. Macredie · Brunel University Research Archive (BURA) (Brunel University London) · 2002
... In this article, we explore the role of mod elling sequential behaviour patterns of users in augmenting social navigation in thematic land scapes. In particular, we compare and analyse the trails of ind ivid ual users in thematic spaces along with their cognitive ability measures. We are interested in whether such trails can provid e useful guid ance for social navigation if they are embed ed in a visual--spatial environment. Furthermore, we are interested in whether such information can help users to learn from each other, for example, from the ones who have been successful in retrieving d cuments. In this article, we first d scribe how users' trails in sessions of an experimental stud y of visual information retrieval can be characterized by Hid d en Markov Mod els. Trails of users with the most successful retrieval performance are used to estimate parameters of such mod els. Optimal virtual trails generated from the mod els are visualized and animated as if they were actual trails of ind vid ual users in ord er to highlight behavioural patterns that may foster social navigation. The find ings of the research will provid ed irect input to the d sign of social navigation systems as well as to enrich theories of social navigation in a wid er context. These find ings will lead to the further d velopment and consolid ation of a tightly coupled parad igmof spatial, semantic and social navigation