Abstract
Searching for information in a database typically involves a series of decisions, as one chooses among alternative places to look. Behavioral decision theory investigates the cognitive processes involved in decision-making, with a particular focus on those that may impede effective performance. Applying this perspective to information search provides a set of measures for characterizing performance with different databases and a set of hypotheses for predicting search difficulties. These measures were used and these hypotheses were examined in the context of searching for information in a familiar database, the Statistical Abstract of the United States. Results generally replicated previous findings with other decision-making tasks and suggested ways to improve performance. For example, subjects had unrealistic expectations regarding their ability to locate information quickly, which might be reduced by having them identify a set of possible locations before focusing on any one. © 1986 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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