Study of Interactive Feedback During Mediated Information Retrieval

Feedback is a fundamental concept within the physical Feedback has also been a fundamental concept and the social sciences with its modern origins drawn throughout the history and development of cybernetics. from cybernetics. Information science is exploring feedThe concept of feedback have evolved from Wiener’s back as a key component in the interactive model of (1948, 1950/1954, 1953) cybernetic feedback model eminformation retrieval ( IR). This article reports results phasizing the properties of the negative (or deviationfrom a study exploring the information retrieval and types of interactive feedback during mediated IR. Five counteracting) feedback based on a steady state process. different types of interactive feedback were identified, Maruyama’s (1963, 1968) social feedback model extending the interactive IR model to include relevance, emerged later to emphasize the attributes of both positive magnitude, and strategy interactive feedback. Implica(or deviation-amplifying) and negative feedback. The tions for further research investigating the nature and properties of feedback have been extensively explored in models of interactive feedback in information retrieval are discussed. cybernetics and many social science disciplines (Richardson, 1991). Within human-computer interaction (HCI), feedback is understood as the information sent back to Introduction the user by a computer system resulting from a user’s input to the system (Brandes & Wilensky, 1991; Norman, Beyond the early days of batch processing, information 1988; Resnick, 1994). The types of feedback identified in retrieval (IR) has developed to a state of dynamic and HCI have included: Visual, tactile, and auditory feedback. interactive searching of online and CD-ROM databases by However, feedback is still a somewhat ambiguous and human search intermediaries, end-users, and intermediary primitive concept in HCI research. The growing HCI and expert systems, involving ever more complex interIR literatures have paid little attention to exploring the changes between user and system. Feedback has been an cognitive aspects of feedback, models of feedback in the integral concept for IR as it serves as the mechanism interactive context, or developing a useful theory of feedfacilitating communication between users and IR systems. back (Ford, Wood & Walsh, 1994; Meadow, 1992). As a central dynamic of the interactive IR process, feedSpink and Losee (1996) provide a more in-depth discusback involves the user’s evaluations of the IR system sion of the development of feedback models in cybernetoutput, user’s judgments, and query modifications. As ics, the social sciences, and HCI. a communication mechanism, our conceptualization of The study reported in this article investigated the confeedback forms part of our theoretical understanding of cept of feedback in IR and explored the types of feedback human behavior during IR, as well as affecting the practical design of IR systems and interfaces. The concept of during mediated IR. Feedback in the context of user-IR feedback is intriguing and not well understood in IR, system interaction is referred in this study as ‘‘interactive with different views of feedback emerging in the research feedback,’’ to distinguish the concept of feedback in interliterature. Although many elements combine to form an active IR from feedback concepts used in the non-HCI IR interaction, without feedback there can be no interaccontexts of cybernetics and the social sciences. An intertion. active feedback unit of analysis was developed to allow investigation of the types and frequency of the interactive feedback loop during 40 mediated online searches. This Received March 7, 1995; revised November 2, 1995; accepted June 13, article first discusses the evolution of the concept of feed1996. back within the traditional and interactive models of IR. Second, the background, objectives, research design, and q 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.