Human Information Behavior Research Articles

The Seven Deadly Tensions of Health-Related Human Information Behavior

Tensions are a ubiquitous feature of social life and are manifested in a number of particular forms: contradictory logics, competing demands, clashes of ideas, contradictions, dialectics, irony, paradoxes, and/or dilemmas. This essay aims to explore in detail tensions surrounding seven common findings of the information seeking literature relating to: interpersonal communication, accessibility, level of skill, individual preferences, psychological limits, inertia, and costs. Our incomplete understanding of these tensions can lead us to suggest resolutions that do not recognize their underlying dualities. Human information behavior stands at the intersection of many important theoretical and policy issues (e.g., personalized medicine). Policy makers need to be more attuned to these basic tensions of information seeking recognizing the real human limits they represent to informing the public. So, even if you build a great information system, people will not necessarily use it because of the force of these underlying tensions. While rationality rules systems, irrationality rules people. The proliferation of navigator roles over the last several years is actually a hopeful sign: recognition that people need a human interface to inform them about our ever more complex health care systems.

Where is the evidence? A review of the literature on the usability of book indexes

Mary Coe reviews the literature in search of an evidence base for book indexing practice. She discovers that while research has been conducted on index characteristics and usability, it has been systems-focused, and that little is known about what readers expect from book indexes and how they use them. She suggests that user studies could contribute not only to development of better indexing practice but to greater knowledge of human information behaviour.

Research on the Facial Expression Feature Extraction of Facial Expression Recognition Based on MATLAB

In such a developed day of information communication, communication is an important essential way of interpersonal communication. As a carrier of information, expression is rich in human behavior information. Facial expression recognition is a combination of many fields, but also a new topic in the field of pattern recognition. This paper mainly studied the facial feature extraction based on MATLAB, by MATLAB software, extracting the expression features through a large number of facial expressions, which can be divided into different facial expressions more accurate classification .

Applying an information-seeking dialogue model in an interactive information retrieval system

Purpose – People often engage in different information-seeking strategies (ISSs) within a single information-seeking episode. A critical concern for the design of information retrieval (IR) systems is how to provide support for these different behaviors in a manner which searchers can easily understand, navigate and use, as they move from one ISS to another. The purpose of this paper is to describe a dialogue structure that was implemented in an experimental IR system, in order to address this concern. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a user-centered experiment to evaluate the IR systems. Participants were asked to search for information on two different task types, with four different topics per task, in both the experimental system and a baseline system emulating state-of-the-art IR systems. The authors report here the results related explicitly to the use of the experimental system's dialogue structure. Findings – For one of the task types, most participants followed the search steps as predicted in the dialogue structures, and those who did so completed the task in fewer moves. For the other task type, predicted order of moves was often not followed, but participants again used fewer moves when following the predicted order. Results demonstrate that the dialogue structures the authors designed indeed support effective human information behavior patterns in a variety of ways, and that searchers can effectively use a system which changes to support different ISSs. Originality/value – This study shows that it is both possible and beneficial, to design an IR system which can support multiple ISSs, and that such a system can be understood and used successfully.

Information practices of urban newcomers: An analysis of habits and wandering

This paper reviews information practices used by transnational migrants to become familiar with new urban surroundings. Drawing on interviews with 26 participants, all of whom had moved to New York City in the past 2 years, I analyze the interrelatedness of people, city space, and technology. By rooting my analysis in the experiences of transnational newcomers to New York, my investigation is directed both at library and information science (LIS) scholarship in transnational experience and urban informatics as an area of study. The findings section first addresses participants' practices for becoming familiar with their surroundings as embedded in everyday routines using Bergson's (1911) construct of habits as a means of organizing stimulus. I then develop an analysis of wandering, which emerged as an information practice used by participants to become familiar with their neighborhoods. Building on these themes, I suggest implications for human information behavior theory, arguing that LIS scholars should articulate more clearly and across a wider range of disciplines the concepts of mobile and ubiquitous technologies.

The impact of mobile tablet devices on human information behaviour

Purpose – Mobile computing devices are a significant access point for information activities. Theories and models of human information behaviour have developed over several decades but have not considered the role of the user's computing device in digital information interactions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the information behaviours of young adults when they are given unlimited access to mobile tablet devices. Design/methodology/approach – As information tasks, behaviours and communities shift into digital environments, a researcher of these phenomena is required to mirror that movement with techniques that allow a full exploration of human behaviour and interaction in the online world. Following Kozinets (2009), “netnography” (ethnography in online communities) is applied in this study and all data are collected online from within a community of iPad users, established for the research purpose. Findings – This study reveals that access to mobile tablet devices creates significant shifts in the behaviours of young adults whose lives are immersed in digital information. Mobile tablet devices establish the potential for constant access to digital information and that opportunity is grasped by the participants in this research. Extensive use of mobile device applications or “apps” establishes a more selected and restricted view of information than that encountered in the open and expansive World Wide Web. Originality/value – This paper invites extension to human information behaviour theories and models to include a consideration of computing access device and of new mobility and constancy of access – all of which changes the circumstances and behaviour of the information actor.

Facial Expression Recognition Based on MATLAB

In today's social life, communication between people is essential to do anything important way. The facial expressions are rich in human behavior information, it is very important means of communication, as a carrier of information, expression can convey a lot of voice can not convey the information. Expression recognition field of pattern recognition is a new task, is an essential part of intelligent machines. This paper studies the discrete wavelet transform feature extraction and expression using MATLAB software image feature extraction and treatment with an elastic template matching algorithm to do the appropriate test expression recognition.

Environment Protection for Human Behavior in Metro Fire

Questionnaire surveys to passengers in metro have been performed. Frequency distribution statistics was conducted about their personal information, environmental information and human behavior information in fire. On the basis on that, the author made a comparison between results of this research and ones of other researches for buildings fires in domestic, and gained a coincident result. These conclusions will provide more accurate and more effective supports for fireproofing design. At the same time, these conclusions also are good for the fire prevention and environment protection.Questionnaire surveys to passengers in metro have been performed. Frequency distribution statistics was conducted about their personal information, environmental information and human behavior information in fire. On the basis on that, the author made a comparison between results of this research and ones of other researches for buildings fires in domestic, and gained a coincident result. These conclusions will provide more accurate and more effective supports for fireproofing design. At the same time, these conclusions also are good for the fire prevention and environment protection.

Embedded Tasks as Stimulus to Human Information Behaviour

The paper is captured within the dynamics of Human Information Behaviour in an Academic Library setting of Ahmadu Bello University. It indicated how instinct of information needs are triggered by tasks individuals intend to perform or accomplish. Survey method was used to carry out the investigation. Questionnaire was used to generate data on likely tasks. Dissertation; Thesis and Project received 23(46%) response as tasks that bring people to the Library followed by administrative and independent study with 12(24%) and 10(20%) as another tasks that stimulate people to look for information in the library. The paper recommended that Library and Information Centers should adopt User-Task-Approach to information service delivery to ensure optimum and efficient utilization of fund and allowed them to adjust to dwindling fund allocations. The importance of up-dating existing information collections is relevant to providing quality service. Users are satisfied when they check back again. Satisfaction is guaranteed by maintaining current information collections. Key ward: Human; Information Behavior: information need

Theoretical framework and application of computer-aided experimental human geography： Case study of urban residential location choice

This paper describes the concept of computer-aided experimental human geography,which has been proposed as a methodology in geography. Experimental human geography is defined as a geographical methodology to reproduce human geographical phenomenon experimentally by means of computer sciences and GIS technologies. Its academic function is to study human-environment relationship under explicit geographic structure,implicit characteristics of human behavior,and explicit and implicit environment information. Accordingly,the paper has discussed the scope,principles and technical roadmaps of experimental human geography. In comparison to experimental economics,the paper has found that,in principle,many methods and rules of experimental economics are still effective in experimental human geography,but experimental human geography is more concerned about approaching natural processes simulation of geographic environment. Therefore,certain pre-designed models and special algorithms are necessary for experimental human geography. The experimental human geography rules include "value-induced" principle,"response-game" principle,"experimental control" principle,"statistics-based conclusion" principle,"geographical approximation" principle,and "experimental packaging" principle. Using the methodology of computer-aided experimental human geography,this paper studies the urban residential location choices,with two study objectives:(1) When the layout of urban infrastructure changes,what factors affect the dependence of the subjects on the city center,the reasons for destroying this dependence.(2)Whether the two different urban spatial structures,Burgess Model case and Hoyt Model case,would affect differently when the subjects were asked to choose a residential location. Based on the experiment objectives,the author made five experiment assumptions: urban space layout,residential location,residential location price,job location,incentive mechanisms. And the results are as follows:(1) Differences in urban residential space structures didn't have significant impact on residential location choices of the subjects.(2) In the case of the two typical urban spatial structures,the subjects were more concerned about traffic condition and school district around a residential location when asked to choose.(3) The price factor was not an obvious impact on the residential location choices,which might be the reason that not too many subjects accumulate in a particular area. This case study has shown that the thought and means of computer-aided experimental human geography are feasible. In other words,it is feasible to study the characteristics of human behaviors,such as decision-making behavior,in a controlled experimental environment with clear and realistic geographical structures and designed experimental contents based on GIS and computer technology. In short,this paper tries to develop a basic scientific framework for computer-aided experimental human geography,and much more remains to be done in the future.

Identifying the Stay Point Using GPS Trajectory of Taxis

With the widespread use of personal mobile communications location-aware devices, a large amount of data of trajectory produced and can be used in information services. These huge amounts of data involves the pattern of human behavior information and cause numerous researchers' research interests. As is known,the key to travel information mining from the trajectory data is the stay point recognition and semantic annotation.Overcoming the shortcomings on adaptability and resistance to noise exists in existed stay points identification methods, and also combined with the basic characteristics of the taxi GPS data,We proposed a way with an parameter optimization stratage to get the stay points from a single trajectory and the figure shows it really works well, with high precision and strong adaptability on the recall ratio and precision ratio.And then,based on this significant achievements,we applies a refined clustering method based on the clustering radius and frequency parameters and get the POI results.

“Keep it secret, keep it safe”: Information poverty, information norms, and stigma

When information practices are understood to be shaped by social context, privilege and marginalization alternately affect not only access to, but also use of information resources. In the context of information, privilege, and community, politics of marginalization drive stigmatized groups to develop collective norms for locating, sharing, and hiding information. In this paper, we investigate the information practices of a subcultural community whose activities are both stigmatized and of uncertain legal status: the extreme body modification community. We use the construct of information poverty to analyze the experiences of 18 people who had obtained, were interested in obtaining, or had performed extreme body modification procedures. With a holistic understanding of how members of this community use information, we complicate information poverty by working through concepts of stigma and community norms. Our research contributes to human information behavior scholarship on marginalized groups and to Internet studies research on how communities negotiate collective norms of information sharing online.

ASIS&T annual meeting award winners: A career in information retrieval research

AbstractEditor's SummaryRecalling his start in information science studies, 2012 ASIS&T Research Award winner Kalervo Järvelin explained that reading seminal books in the field influenced his academic and research path. A call to devise a curriculum for classification, indexing and information retrieval drew him away from computer science and firmed his career focus. Driven by the idea that information should be fully accessible for all, regardless of format, language or location, Jarvelin pursued studies on the contribution of natural language processing, ontology‐driven query expansion and feedback, cross‐language information retrieval and metrics for retrieval evaluation. He spoke of challenges for information retrieval, including morphologic complexity of his native language and others, vocabulary mismatch between query and text, and optimal methods for assessing relevance of search returns. Järvelin's current research is on information retrieval in specific task settings and simulating human information behavior for more efficient analysis. An extensive list of publications and awards provides evidence of Järvelin's significant contributions to information science.

Men perform comparably to women in a perspective taking task after administration of intranasal oxytocin but not after placebo.

Oxytocin (OT) is thought to play an important role in human interpersonal information processing and behavior. By inference, OT should facilitate empathic responding, i.e., the ability to feel for others and to take their perspective. In two independent double-blind, placebo-controlled between-subjects studies, we assessed the effect of intranasally administered OT on affective empathy and perspective taking, whilst also examining potential sex differences (e.g., women being more empathic than men). In study 1, we provided 96 participants (48 men) with an empathy scenario and recorded self-reports of empathic reactions to the scenario, while in study 2, a sample of 120 individuals (60 men) performed a computerized implicit perspective taking task. Whilst results from Study 1 showed no influence of OT on affective empathy, we found in Study 2 that OT exerted an effect on perspective taking ability in men. More specifically, men responded faster than women in the placebo group but they responded as slowly as women in the OT group. We conjecture that men in the OT group adopted a social perspective taking strategy, such as did women in both groups, but not men in the placebo group. On the basis of results across both studies, we suggest that self-report measures (such as used in Study 1) might be less sensitive to OT effects than more implicit measures of empathy such as that used in Study 2. If these assumptions are confirmed, one could infer that OT effects on empathic responses are more pronounced in men than women, and that any such effect is best studied using more implicit measures of empathy rather than explicit self-report measures.

Consent biometrics

Biometrics identifies/verifies a person using his/her physiological or behavioral characteristics. It is becoming an important ally for law enforcement and homeland security. However, there are some safety and privacy concerns: biometrics guarded system can be accessed when users are under threaten, reluctant or even unconscious states. In this paper, we propose a new concept, consent biometrics, which incorporates a consent signature based on human behavioral information. The proposed consent biometrics allows users to register their consent signature. When performing identification, the consent biometrics system will measure whether users consent to access the biometric system as well as perform biometrics identity match. In this way, the consent biometrics system can enhance the security, protect users from unauthorized access to the biometric system and discourage criminals to harm/threaten biometric users to some extent. We also propose two schemes that can realize the consent biometrics idea, and present example designs using face recognition and iris recognition as examples of these two schemes, respectively. The experimental results show that consent biometrics cannot only detect the willingness of users, but also achieve high recognition accuracy.

Adaptive non-parametric identification of dense areas using cell phone records for urban analysis

Pervasive large-scale infrastructures (like GPS, WLAN networks or cell-phone networks) generate large datasets containing human behavior information. One of the applications that can benefit from this data is the study of urban environments. In this context, one of the main problems is the detection of dense areas, i.e., areas with a high density of individuals within a specific geographical region and time period. Nevertheless, the techniques used so far face an important limitation: the definition of dense area is not adaptive and as a result the areas identified are related to a threshold applied over the density of individuals, which usually implies that dense areas are mainly identified in downtowns. In this paper, we propose a novel technique, called AdaptiveDAD, to detect dense areas that adaptively define the concept of density using the infrastructure provided by a cell phone network. We evaluate and validate our approach with a real dataset containing the Call Detail Records (CDR) of fifteen million individuals.

The evolution of information behavior research: Looking back to see the future

AbstractThis panel will examine past, present and future trends for one of the central bodies of research within information science – human information behavior (HIB). Beginning with a brief history of the settings, populations, methodologies, theories and other key features of HIB research, the panel will then explore possibilities for the future. Attendees will engage in an interactive ‘working session’ exploring the key research questions being addressed (or that should be addressed) in HIB research, as well as trends in methods and techniques that will inform future work. The panelists have received numerous grants for research on human information behavior, have published widely on the topic, and have served as research leaders within the discipline. They are all very engaging speakers, having presented at numerous international conferences and symposia. These panelists are well‐placed to facilitate an engaging discussion of trends in this important research area of the discipline.

An ecological approach to examining how Americans seek information in today's information environment

AbstractIn recent years, several scholars have called for an ecological approach to HIB (Human information Behavior) research in order to better understand information needs and information seeking. In this poster we present the theoretical background of the ecological approach and present the findings of a study that investigates correlations between people's information needs and the information channels they seek in relation to contextual and environmental factors.

Human information behaviour and physiological measurements as a basis to tailor health information. An explorative study in a physical activity intervention among prediabetic individuals in Northern Finland

To explore through an interdisciplinary approach the potential to tailor health information on the basis of human information behaviour (HIB) on par with the results of basic physiological measurements of individuals' health. The data were collected at the baseline of a physical activity and diabetes prevention intervention with 72 prediabetic participants, conducted in Oulu, Finland, by the University of Oulu and Oulu Deaconess Institute in 2010. Body mass index (BMI), fitness classifications and glucose values were obtained from all prediabetic participants. The interest in, the search for and the use of information on nutrition, physical activity and diabetes were examined through a self-report questionnaire with a response rate of 95.8%. The data were analysed with the SPSS statistics 18 software. The study shows that information behaviour of prediabetic individuals differs according to their BMI and fitness level. Poor physical fitness classifications and high BMI values were associated with an increased desire to receive tailored information on nutrition and physical activity frequently. These results add knowledge on the types and preferred frequencies of tailored information. Because of the small sample size, the results should be validated further.

The Interpretation of Telepathy like Effects: A Novel Electromagnetic and Synchronistic Version of the Psychoanalytic Model

A novel approach is introduced to explain the appearance of telepathy‐like effects as the consequence of disturbances in the normal equilibration or ‘equilibrated non‐equilibrium’ of ordinary human experience. A new electromagnetic version of Freud’s psychoanalytic model is proposed, which begins by treating the mind as a charged object that interacts with others and the environment in a generally balanced pairwise fashion. If the brain is assigned a net charge for a given state of mind, there may be considered to be a balancing of superego, ego, and id level interactions. A temporary altered state of consciousness may result from an over or undercharged experience (from a social perturbation or unconscious wish) that would otherwise be processed during normal habituated experience as part of interdependent behavior during conscious awareness or sleep. Deviations from the normal “equilibration” of such balanced charge states that are not immediately cathected or decathected during personal interactions may result in the deceptive perception of telepathy or a neurosis‐like symptom, perhaps in the form of a remembered dream. However, a genuine telepathy‐like phenomenon may be postulated to exist due to synchronistic effects when considering the unique aspects of synchronous human behavior and possible subconscious information acquisition through inference. Electrochemical charges and energies may be assigned to the thoughts, emotions and actions of the human body and these may often be psychologically and socially coordinated and coherent with others: two people may change state at the same time. A macroscopically relevant coherence may result in approximately simultaneous thoughts and actions, and even a form of knowledge, between separated people.