Conformity out of Diversity: Dynamics of Information Needs and Social Influence of Tags in Exploratory Information Search

Authors:
Ruogu Kang;Thomas Kannampallil;Jibo He;Wai-Tat Fu
Affiliations:
Applied Cognitive Science Lab Human Factors Division and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, USA IL 61801;Applied Cognitive Science Lab Human Factors Division and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, USA IL 61801;Applied Cognitive Science Lab Human Factors Division and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, USA IL 61801;Applied Cognitive Science Lab Human Factors Division and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, USA IL 61801
Venue:
FAC '09 Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Foundations of Augmented Cognition. Neuroergonomics and Operational Neuroscience: Held as Part of HCI International 2009
Year:
2009

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Abstract

We studied the dynamic effects of information needs and social influence of tags in an exploratory search task. Although initially differences in information needs led to diversity in tag choices, this diversity disappeared as participants collaboratively tagged the same set of resources. Our findings are in general consistent with the notion that people conform to the collective interpretation of contents in an information system. In addition, our results showed that conformity does not only arise out of imitation of behavior, but also from the same underlying semantic interpretation or knowledge structures of users as they engage in informal collaboration through the social tagging system. Implications for design of social information system are discussed.