Template for Entry Information Foraging Theory

DEFINITION Information foraging theory [9] provides scientific predictions and explanations of information-seeking behavior in human-computer interaction (HCI). It also provides engineering models for designing and evaluating information systems and their user interfaces. Information foraging theory assumes that people adapt their information-seeking behavior to maximize their rate of gaining useful information to meet their ongoing goals. Specific models of human-information interaction are developed through (a) rational analysis of the structure and constraints of the task environment and information environment that constitute the ultimate forces driving information-seeking behavior and (b) specification of cognitive models (user knowledge and cognitive processes) that constitute the psychological machinery behind the observed information-seeking behavior of users. Rational analysis draws upon theories and mathematical approaches developed to address rational choice under uncertainty, and specifically draws upon many models developed to address food-foraging strategies in optimal foraging theory (a branch of behavioral ecology in biology). Cognitive models are developed as programs in computational cognitive architectures that simulate human perception, action, thinking, memory, and other aspects of human information processing.