Abstract
Although much of the hubris and hyperbole surrounding the 1990's Internet
has softened to a reasonable level, the inexorable momentum of information
growth continues unabated. This wealth of information provides resources
for adapting to the problems posed by our increasingly complex world,
but the simple availability of more information does not guarantee
its successful transformation into valuable knowledge that shapes,
guides, and improves our activity. When faced with something like
the analysis of sense-making behavior on the web, traditional research
models tell us a lot about learning and performance with browser
operations, but very little about how people will actively navigate
and search through information structures, what information they
will choose to consume, and what conceptual models they will induce
about the landscape of cyberspace.
Thus, it is fortunate that a new field of research, Adaptive Information
Interaction (AII), is becoming possible. AII centers on the problems
of understanding and improving human-information interaction. It
is about how people will best shape themselves to their information
environments, and how information environments can best be shaped
to people. Its roots lie in human-computer interaction (HCI), information
retrieval, and the behavioral and social sciences.
This book is about Information Foraging Theory (IFT), a new theory
in Adaptive Information Interaction that is one example of a recent
flourish of theories in adaptationist psychology that draw upon evolutionary-ecological
theory in biology. IFT assumes that people (indeed, all organisms)
are ecologically rational, and that human information-seeking mechanisms
and strategies adapt the structure of the information environments
in which they operate. Its main aim is to create technology that
is better shaped to users. Information Foraging Theory will be of
interest to student and professional researchers in HCI and cognitive
psychology.
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