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Confidence as Part of Searcher’s Cognitive Context

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Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science (LOD 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13811))

Abstract

A growing body of interdisciplinary NeuraSearch research in the Information Retrieval (IR) domain, built on the investigations evaluating searchers’ neurophysiological activity captured during the information search interactions, advances the understanding of the searchers’ cognitive context. Regarding the searchers’ information needs, the cognitive context represents the surroundings of a knowledge anomaly perceived in their state of knowledge. Memory retrieval is a fundamental mechanism that drives the users’ informativeness about their knowledge and knowledge gaps. Moreover, the confidence perceptions manifest the quality and attribute of the users’ memories and could be, thus, used as a sign of the quality of memories aiding the user to appraise their knowledge abilities. We used the methodology of NeuraSearch to reduce the cognitive burden commonly in traditional IR scenarios posed to the users to understand and interpret their subjective perceptions and feelings. We investigated the patterns of spatio-temporal brain activity (captured by EEG) in 24 neurologically-healthy volunteers engaged in textual general knowledge Question Answering (Q/A) Task. We looked for i) the evidence of functional processes leading to descriptive (factual) knowledge memory retrieval and ii) their interaction effects incorporating retrospective confidence judgments. Our investigation raises further questions informing research in IR and the area of user information seeking.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The details of the procedure are due to page limit omitted.

  2. 2.

    https://trec.nist.gov/data/qamain.html.

  3. 3.

    http://www.mangelslab.org/bknorms.

  4. 4.

    A solution for multiple comparison problems and does not depend on multiple comparisons correction or Gaussian assumptions about the probability distribution of the data.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. NeuraSearch Laboratory, Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

    Dominika Michalkova & Yashar Moshfeghi

  2. School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

    Mario Parra Rodriguez

Authors
  1. Dominika Michalkova
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  2. Mario Parra Rodriguez
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  3. Yashar Moshfeghi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yashar Moshfeghi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Catania, Catania, Italy

    Giuseppe Nicosia

  2. University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Varun Ojha

  3. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Emanuele La Malfa

  4. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Gabriele La Malfa

  5. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Panos Pardalos

  6. Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy

    Giuseppe Di Fatta

  7. University of Catania, Catania, Italy

    Giovanni Giuffrida

  8. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    Renato Umeton

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Michalkova, D., Rodriguez, M.P., Moshfeghi, Y. (2023). Confidence as Part of Searcher’s Cognitive Context. In: Nicosia, G., et al. Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science. LOD 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13811. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25891-6_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25891-6_39

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