Running Head: The Collective Knowledge of Social Tags 1

*Title Page -- anything identifying the author should be on this page.
Running head: THE COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL TAGS 1
The Collective Knowledge of Social Tags: Direct and Indirect Influences on Navigation,
Learning, and Information Processing
Ulrike Cress and Christoph Held
Knowledge Media Research Center, Tuebingen, Germany
Joachim Kimmerle
University of Tuebingen, Germany
Author Note
Ulrike Cress, Knowledge Construction Lab, Knowledge Media Research Center,
Tuebingen, Germany; Christoph Held, Knowledge Construction Lab, Knowledge Media
Research Center, Tuebingen, Germany; Joachim Kimmerle, Department of Applied Cognitive
Psychology and Media Psychology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany.
Some of the findings of Experiment 1 have been presented at the annual meeting of
the Cognitive Science Society 2010 (Held & Cress, 2010).
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Joachim Kimmerle,
Department of Applied Cognitive Psychology and Media Psychology, University of
Tuebingen, Schleichstr. 4, D-72076 Tuebingen, Germany. E-mail: j.kimmerle@iwm-kmrc.de

*Manuscript -- nothing identifying the author should be listed here
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Running head: THE COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL TAGS 1
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10 The Collective Knowledge of Social Tags: Direct and Indirect Influences on Navigation,
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12 Learning, and Information Processing
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THE COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL TAGS 2
Abstract
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2 Tag clouds generated in social tagging systems can capture the collective knowledge of
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5 communities. Using as a basis spreading activation theories, information foraging theory, and
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7 the co-evolution model of cognitive and social systems, we present here a model for an
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10 extended information scent, which proposes that both collective and individual knowledge
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12 have a significant influence on link selection, incidental learning, and information processing.
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Two experimental studies tested the applicability of the model to a situation in which
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17 individual knowledge and collective knowledge were contradictory to each other. The results
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19 of the first experiment showed that a higher individual strength of association between a
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22 target in demand and a tag led to a higher probability of selecting corresponding links,
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24 combined with less thorough information processing for non-corresponding links. But users
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27 also adapted their navigation behavior to the collective knowledge (strength of associations of
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29 tags) of the community and showed incidental learning during navigation, which resulted in a
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change of their individual strength of associations. The second experiment confirmed these
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34 results and showed, in addition, that the effects also occurred for indirect associations.
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36 Altogether, the results show that the extended information scent is an appropriate and fertile
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39 model for describing the interplay of individual knowledge and the collective knowledge of
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41 social tags.
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44 Keywords: Cooperative/collaborative learning; interactive learning environments;
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46 multimedia/hypermedia systems; navigation
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The Collective Knowledge of Social Tags: Direct and Indirect Influences on Navigation,
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2 Learning, and Information Processing
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7 1. Introduction
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9 Innovative technology for learning may be found in recent developments of the
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12 Internet, especially those related to Web 2.0 (O’Bannon, Lubke, Beard, & Britt, 2011; Judd &
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14 Kennedy, 2010; Schwind, Buder, Cress, & Hesse, 2012; Su, Yang, Hwang, & Zhang, 2010).
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17 Although the Web is not a learning technology itself, it enhances learning culture dramatically
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19 (Chong, 2010; Ebner, Lienhardt, Rohs, & Meyer, 2010; Jones, Blackey, Fitzgibbon, & Chew,
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2010). The Web gives access to people and information and provides tools that support users
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24 in communicating and collaborating, in searching for information, exchanging and processing
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26 it. Web-related activities are not ‘learning’ in the sense that people acquire knowledge
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29 according to a fixed curriculum, but the Web does allow people to make use of an abundance
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31 of resources for their own individual purposes (Huang & Yang, 2009). Indeed, it is not only
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34 this access to resources which makes the Web a crucial learning technology, it is also the fact
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36 that the Web can aggregate single resources contributed by individuals, process and interlink
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them, and thus create external representations of ‘collective knowledge’. We consider social
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41 tagging systems as examples of such technologies that provide external representations of
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43 collective knowledge in a prototypical way (for a discussion of a tag-based learning system,
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46 cf. Chen, Chen, & Sun, 2010). The present paper deals with this collective knowledge as it is
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48 represented in tags. It also analyzes whether people can make use of this collective knowledge
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51 and to what extent they may learn from it when they navigate through the Web.
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53 In the following sub-sections we will first describe social tagging systems and show
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56 how they create an external representation of collective knowledge. We will then describe
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58 people’s knowledge structure and show how it influences user navigation in the Web.
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Subsequently, we will introduce a co-evolution model that deals with the interplay of
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individual and collective knowledge processes. In Section 2 we will present a review of recent
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2 research about tagging, which will result in the proposition of a model that presents internal
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5 and collective knowledge as an extended information scent. Two experimental studies will
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7 then be presented that test this model and analyze the effect of the extended information scent
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10 on users’ navigation behavior, incidental learning, and tag processing.
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1.1 Tag clouds as representations of collective knowledge
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17 Social tagging is an activity in which users annotate digital resources with keywords,
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19 so-called “tags” (cf. Golder & Huberman, 2006; Ley & Seitlinger, 2010; Trant, 2009).
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Examples of such digital resources are bookmarks (e.g., delicious.com), pictures (e.g.,
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24 flickr.com), blogs (e.g., Technorati), or products (e.g., on amazon.com). In most applications,
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26 a user can choose individual tags for stored resources. So a tag reflects a user’s individual
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29 association with a resource, and thus a tag represents the specific meaning or relevance to the
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31 respective user. On this individual level tags are metadata that help an individual user to
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34 arrange, classify, organize, and re-find her or his own stored Web resources. Social tagging
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36 systems extend this individual level to a collective level. They aggregate the tags of all users
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and enable the creation of a folksonomy (Trant, 2009; Vander Wal, 2005). This folksonomy
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41 results from the tripartite network among users, tags, and resources (Lambiotte & Ausloos,
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43 2005), and also enables detection of similarities among resources, user, and tags. Resources
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46 that are frequently annotated with the same tag are apparently somewhat similar; and different
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48 tags which co-occur frequently across different resources or users also seem to have
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51 something in common. When, for example, the tags “President”, “Obama”, and “Ford” co-
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53 occur frequently in a community, then the three tags have some commonalities and seem to
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56 describe similar concepts. While in an ontology the semantic relations among concepts are
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58 pre-defined and users can only deal with the top-down created concepts, a folksonomy is
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created through a bottom-up process in which each user can choose tags freely. Here, it is
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exactly the aggregation of the tags that provides the conceptual structure of a community.
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2 Even if not all people used all these tags, and even if some community members did not know
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5 that, for example, Gerald Ford was a former President, the folksonomy would reveal this issue
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7 association as part of the collective knowledge, as soon as a significant number of users used
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10 this combination of tags in their individual annotations. Thus, social tagging systems build an
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12 aggregation of the individual conceptual structures of the users and yield “emergent
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semantics” (Aberer et al., 2004; Staab, Santini, Nack, Steels, & Maedche, 2002) which are
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17 based on the majority of users.
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19 A common method of visualizing the association strengths among different tags or
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22 between tags and resources is the presentation of tag clouds. Tag clouds present those tags
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24 with the strongest associations to the search term: the stronger the associations of one tag to
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27 another, the larger its font size is displayed. Figure 1 illustrates such a tag cloud. It shows as
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29 an example a tag cloud of the search term ‘red wine aroma’.
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----- Insert Figure 1 about here -----
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34 The way social tagging systems create collective knowledge structures by connecting
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36 the associations of tags and resources strongly corresponds to processes in individual human
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39 memory and its cognitive structure. This conceptual correspondence will be discussed in the
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41 following section.
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46 1.2 Individual knowledge and web navigation
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48 A variety of cognitive models of semantic memory assume that human memory is
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51 based on a collection of cognitive structures, so-called chunks, which are organized as nodes
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53 in a large network in memory (e.g., Anderson, 1983; Collins & Loftus, 1975). In these models
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56 each of the chunks is connected to other chunks with a different strength of association. The
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58 strength of association derives from people’s past learning experiences. When two chunks
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frequently co-occur in a meaningful context, their association will become stronger.
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The strength of association determines the retrieval of chunks in semantic memory: in

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2 order to retrieve a chunk it has to be activated by other chunks. The activation spreads from
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5 one chunk to another. The stronger the association, the higher is the likelihood of activation of
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7 a chunk. These spreading activation theories (Anderson, 1983; Collins & Loftus, 1975) do
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10 not only assume that chunks are connected to other chunks in people’s memory. Within a
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12 network of chunks an activation of a chunk may also lead to the activation of other chunks
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that are associated with this initially activated chunk, that is, other (associated) chunks may be
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17 indirectly activated in addition (Experiment 1 will deal with direct relations; Experiment 2
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19 will address the issue of indirect associations; see below).
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22 According to information foraging theory (Pirolli, 2007; Pirolli & Card, 1999) the
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24 strength of association and the corresponding activation of chunks play a crucial role in a
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27 user’s Web navigation. When navigating through the Web a user has to decide which links or
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29 tags may lead to the desired (but not directly accessible) resource. This resource is called the
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distal object, following Brunswik’s lens model (Brunswik, 1943). The links or tags which are
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34 provided on a Web site are so-called proximal cues which serve as a basis for the judgment as
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36 to whether or not following a link will probably lead to the topic of interest. This estimation
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39 describes the information scent of a link. In other words, the information scent is the
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41 association strength between the words or concepts described in the link on the one hand, and
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44 the concepts referring to the desired goal on the other (cf. Figure 2). The stronger the links are
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46 associated with the desired goal the higher is their information scent.
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49 ----- Insert Figure 2 about here -----
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51 For instance, when in a user’s memory the chunk ‘Prozac’ is strongly associated with
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the chunk ‘treatment of major depression, a Web link named ‘Prozac’ has a high information
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56 scent when a user searches for information about the treatment of major depression. A number
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58 of studies have shown the effect of the information scent on Web navigation. They have
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61 demonstrated that people tend to choose those links with the strongest associations to the
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search goal (e.g., Blackmon, Polson, Kitajima, & Lewis, 2002; Fu & Pirolli, 2007; Pirolli,
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2 2004; Pirolli, Fu, Reeder, & Card, 2002).
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7 1.3 Co-evolution of individual and collective knowledge
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9 A framework for analyzing the interplay of individual and collective processes with
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12 regard to social software is the co-evolution model of cognitive and social systems (Cress &
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14 Kimmerle, 2008; Moskaliuk et al., 2011; cf. also Ley, Schweiger, & Seitlinger, 2011). This
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17 model looks into how users collaborate via a shared digital artifact. The model combines a
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19 cognitive with a systemic perspective in that it conceptualizes users as cognitive systems and
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their collaboration process as a social system. Each system has its specific mode of operation.
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24 A cognitive system operates by means of individual cognitive processes such as perception,
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26 thinking, or problem solving; the social system operates by means of communication (cf.
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29 Luhmann, 1995). The operations of the social system become manifest in the modifications
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31 that are accomplished in the shared digital artifact (cf. Moskaliuk, Kimmerle, & Cress, 2012).
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34 Both systems are autopoietic and self-referential. They cannot simply merge, because each
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36 system has its own way of operation. But they can cross-fertilize each other (Kimmerle,
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Cress, & Held, 2010).
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41 Both systems interact through processes of externalization and internalization. An
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43 individual externalizes his or her own (i.e., internal) knowledge and conveys it into the shared
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46 artifact. There, the information is further processed according to the system’s rules and is
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48 integrated into the artifact. This can lead to emergent knowledge. Another user can internalize
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51 this information, operate on it, and integrate it into her or his own cognitive system. Through
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53 these processes both the cognitive systems and the social system evolve. The model states that
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56 it is incongruities between knowledge in the cognitive system and the information in the
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58 artifact that trigger this co-evolution (Kimmerle, Moskaliuk, & Cress, 2011). Encountering
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information in the artifact that is not compatible with internal knowledge will motivate a user
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to modify the artifact and adapt it to his or her own knowledge (process of externalization), or
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2 to modify own knowledge and adapt that to the information of the artifact (process of
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5 internalization). In the process of externalization it is the artifact that develops, in the process
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7 of internalization it is the individual cognitive system that develops. Since many people
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10 interact and externalize their knowledge into one shared digital artifact, processes of
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12 collaborative knowledge building and individual learning occur. So far the model has been
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applied to small group wikis (Moskaliuk, Kimmerle, & Cress, 2009), to Wikipedia
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17 (Kimmerle, Moskaliuk, Harrer, & Cress, 2010), task-management systems (Kimmerle, Cress,
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19 & Held, 2010), and weblogs (Kimmerle, Moskaliuk, Cress, & Thiel, 2011).
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22 There are also other approaches that deal with the relationship of individual and
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24 collective processes. The Distributed Cognition approach (Hollan, Hutchins, & Kirsh, 2000;
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27 Hutchins, 1995; Perry, 2003), for example, points to the importance of expanding individual
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29 cognitive systems by the social context. The Distributed Cognition framework assumes that
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cognition is not limited to individuals; instead it is proposed that cognition and knowledge are
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34 distributed across individuals, objects, artifacts, and tools. Thus, it is presumed that
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36 knowledge is represented inside the head of people, but does also exist in the world and
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39 ‘between’ different individuals and artifacts. Here, the focus is also on the interaction of
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41 internal representations and external tools or objects. The Distributed Cognition framework
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44 has already been applied to explain how social tags may influence knowledge acquisition (Fu,
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46 2008).
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49 Tag clouds resulting from social tagging systems provide shared digital artifacts and
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51 should be pertinent devices to support the co-evolution of individual and collective
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knowledge: people externalize their knowledge by choosing tags, and they internalize and
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56 learn from the collective knowledge by processing the tags. In the following section we will
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58 provide a review on recent studies that have dealt with processes of externalization and
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internalization in the context of social tagging systems. This presentation will result in the
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2 proposal of a model that integrates these findings.
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7 2. The processing of tags
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9 To date only a few studies exist about the processing of tags, and most of them do not
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12 explicitly focus on the interplay between individual and collective knowledge. Sinclair and
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14 Cardew-Hall (2007), for example, compared searching with and without tags. They found that
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17 users preferred tag clouds when browsing for general and unspecific information, but they
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19 preferred traditional search interfaces when searching for specific information. Kang and Fu
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(2010) as well as Kang, Kannampallil, He, and Fu (2009) also compared traditional search
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24 tools and tags. They took people’s domain expertise into account and differentiated between
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26 experts and novices. They found that experts rely more on their own domain knowledge to
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29 generate search queries, whereas novices are more strongly influenced by social cues. Budiu,
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31 Pirolli, and Hong (2009) compared tagging by mouse-clicking, traditional tagging by typing,
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34 and a baseline condition. They found that tagging by clicking increased tagging rates and
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36 improved fact recognition compared to tagging by typing. These authors also point out that
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tagging by mouse-clicking strengthened “the memory traces by repeated readings of relevant
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41 words in the text and, thus, improves recognition” (p. 615).
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43 Some studies compared different ways of visualizing tags. Kuo, Hentrich, Good and
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46 Wilkinson (2007) compared cloud and list layouts. They measured correctness of response
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48 and response time and found that compared to lists, clouds led to longer response times, but
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51 improved responses. Halvey and Keane (2007) also compared lists and clouds. Their
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53 participants had to find a given item within ten items, which took them longer in clouds than
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56 in lists. Furthermore, users identified tags with larger font sizes, tags at the beginning of their
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58 list, and in the upper-left corner of the tag clouds faster than the other tags. Rivadeneira,
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Gruen, Muller and Millen (2007) compared different tag cloud layouts and measured recall
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and recognition. They found that tags with larger fonts were recalled better and recognized
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2 more quickly. Bateman, Gutwin, and Nacenta (2008) manipulated a variety of properties of
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5 tags (font size, tag area, number of characters, tag width, font weight, color, intensity, number
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7 of pixels) and measured their effect on link selection. They found that font size and font
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10 weight had stronger effects than intensity, number of characters, or tag area, which were also
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12 influential. When several visual properties were manipulated at once, there was no one
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property that stood out above the others.
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17 None of these studies considered the participants’ knowledge a relevant variable, and
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19 thus none of these studies captured the exchange process between collective and individual
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22 knowledge. Until now this has only been done in several studies by Fu and colleagues about
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24 the production of tags.
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29 2.1 A model of social tag choices
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Fu, Kannampallil, and Kang (2009, 2010) presented a probabilistic topic model: a
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34 semantic imitation model of social tag choices. The model functions on two levels: on the
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36 individual level it describes internal individual knowledge through word/tag-concept
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39 relations, and on the collective level it describes external collective knowledge through
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41 word/tag-topic relations (Fu, Kannampallil, Kang, & He, 2010). For an individual user the
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44 tags that are provided by the tagging system act as retrieval cues for relevant internal concepts
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46 and influence the user’s semantic interpretation of a document. Based on the tags provided, a
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49 user infers the topic and decides whether or not a document contains the information sought.
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51 This part of the model includes the information scent, as introduced above. The model states
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further that existing tags influence the production of tags. Provided tags activate semantic
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56 representations (which had been inferred from tags) which in turn influence the choice of tags.
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58 Thus, people view a document based on their own individual association strengths between
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61 tags and concepts, and they build new tags according to this association strength. So the
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model proposes that individual associations change by considering the tags. Simulations
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2 confirmed that common semantic representations of words and concepts among users led to a
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5 coherent semantic interpretation of the documents and to the choice of similar tags. Simulated
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7 experts, whose word-concept relations matched perfectly with the word-topic distributions in
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10 the documents, reached stability much faster than simulated novices, whose knowledge
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12 representation did not accurately match that of the documents. Fu and Dong (2010) interpret
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this semantic imitation as social learning. They look at processes of internalization of the
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17 collective knowledge and differentiate between assimilation and accommodation. In
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19 assimilation a user enriches his or her own mental concepts, in accommodation he or she
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22 forms new mental categories. The authors predicted that information sources with a low
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24 topical overlap would lead to the formation of more new categories than information sources
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27 with high topical overlap. Data of eight users were collected and the correlations of the
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29 participants’ data with the models were considerably high. Consistent with the expectation,
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more categories were created from the participants in the low-overlap task than from those in
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34 the high-overlap task.
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39 2.2 Individual and collective association strength
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41 The same processes were addressed previously in a study by Cress and Held (in press).
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44 In that study, they did not measure learning through the creation of the participants’ own tags
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46 (social imitation) but by a knowledge test, which measured the association strengths of users
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49 after navigation tasks. They considered situations in which the individual association
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51 strengths contradicted the collective ones. They found that users adapt to the collective
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association strengths and thus internalize the knowledge inherent in tags.
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56 When navigating the Web, users process the links of a Web site in order to assess their
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58 information scents and to choose a navigation path. Tags written in large font size in tag
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61 clouds then indicate strong associations of concepts, even if these do not correspond to the
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individual’s associations. So people start thinking again about their own knowledge and start
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2 to follow the associations given by the tag cloud.
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5 Held, Kimmerle, and Cress (2012) found that such learning processes take place even
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7 without any instruction for learning, just “along the path” (p. 35). The mere use of tag clouds
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10 alone influenced a user’s navigation process, and finally led to an adaptation of the user’s own
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12 knowledge structure to the collective knowledge structure (cf. also Held & Cress, 2009).
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17 2.3 Extended information scent
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19 If we take these results and the theories and models presented above into account, we
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22 may propose that individual knowledge and collective knowledge inherent in tags will
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24 influence navigation, learning, and information processing. Based on the information foraging
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27 theory and the co-evolution model we propose an extended information scent as it is shown in
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29 Figure 3. This figure displays the individual knowledge structure and the collective
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knowledge structure according to the distal information (topic of interest) and the proximal
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34 cues (tags). The individual knowledge structure (displayed in light grey) is based on
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36 individual representations (chunks), the collective knowledge structure (dark grey) on tags
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39 and the folksonomy which defines their interrelations. Individual and collective knowledge do
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41 not necessarily need to be consistent. The association strengths as well as the individual and
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44 collaborative representations may differ. The model states that the extended information scent
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46 is a linear function of the individual and the collective association strengths. Individual
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49 learning processes are assumed to take place when the individual representation of the topic
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51 of interest assimilates to the external presentation given by the folksonomy.
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56 In the following Sections 3 and 4 we will present two experimental studies that aimed
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58 at examining this extended information scent model empirically. In Experiment 1 we studied
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61 how tags influence navigation, learning, and information processing when they are directly
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related to the topic of interest. Experiment 2 examined, in addition, the impact of tags when
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2 they are only indirectly related through associations.
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7 3. Experiment 11
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10 The first experiment tested this model of an extended information scent by
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12 systematically manipulating the individual and collective knowledge structure. In order to
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examine learning processes, we induced a conflict of varying strengths between both types of
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17 knowledge structures. We assumed that individual and collective association strengths would
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19 have a linear effect on a) people’s navigation behavior, that is, their link selection, b) people’s
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22 incidental learning processes through social tags, and c) on information processing of
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24 presented tags. The following hypotheses will make these assumptions specific.
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29 3.1 Hypotheses
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Navigation (H1): The strength of association (both individual and collective) linearly
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34 increases the selection rate of corresponding tags and decreases the selection rate of non-
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36 corresponding tags.
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39 Learning (H2): The collective strength of association linearly increases the user’s
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41 association with corresponding tags and linearly decreases the association with non-
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44 corresponding tags.
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46 Tag processing (H3): The strength of association (both individual and collective)
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49 linearly decreases the depth of information processing of all tags presented in a tag cloud.
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51 The question will be explored whether interaction effects will occur between
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individual and collective strength of association—with regard to any of the dependent
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56 variables.
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60 1
Some of the data of this experiment have been reported in Held and Cress (2010). These data are not repeated
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here. Instead we describe the findings verbally and refer to the previous paper where applicable.
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2 3.2 Method
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7 3.2.1 Participants
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9 We recruited 596 participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk (www.mturk.com), an
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12 Internet marketplace for engaging users in online micro-tasks: “Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is
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14 a market in which anyone can post tasks to be completed and specify prices paid for
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17 completing them. The inspiration of the system was to have human users complete simple
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19 tasks that […] typically require little time and effort, and users are paid a very small amount
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upon completion” (Kittur, Chi, & Suh, 2008, p. 453-454). “Micro-task markets such as
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24 Amazon’s Mechanical Turk are promising platforms for conducting a variety of user study
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26 tasks […]. Hundreds of users can be recruited for highly interactive tasks for marginal costs
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29 within a timeframe of days or even minutes” (p. 456).
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31 The participants were paid US-$1.20 for taking part in the experiment. 65 participants
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34 had to be excluded from the data analysis, because they stated that they already had some
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36 knowledge about the specific topic domain of the experiment. Of the 531 remaining
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participants 179 were female and 352 male, the mean age was 28.94 years (SD = 9.36). The
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41 participants came from 52 different countries; most of them resided in the United States
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43 (41.1%) and India (36.7%).
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48 3.2.2 Materials and procedure
49
50
51 In order to be able to manipulate the participants’ prior knowledge, we selected a topic
52
53 domain that the participants were not familiar with, that is, wine from the Eurasian country of
54
55
56 Georgia, in particular wine regions of Georgia. The experiment was conducted online,
57
58 allowing the users to participate from any computer with an Internet connection. Overall,
59
60
participation took about eight minutes. We instructed the participants that the goal of the task
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62
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65
was to receive feedback on design features of wine Web sites. The factual goal of the task was
1
2 not made transparent for the users.
3
4
5 The participants’ task was separated into two phases. In the first phase, the participants
6
7 were asked to provide feedback on the design of a wine list from “a pilot user who loves
8
9
10 Georgian wines”. It was not mentioned that they should memorize any content of the wine list
11
12 and the participants were not informed that the content had any specific relevance for further
13
14
15
steps of the task. This list was displayed for 30 seconds, followed by five general questions
16
17 about the design and information of the list (e.g., “Would it be helpful to provide further
18
19 information on specific wine regions?”) in order to direct the participants’ attention to the
20
21
22 content of the list. The wine list was still available to the participants while they were
23
24 answering the questions.
25
26
27 The second phase of the experiment was a navigation task. Here, participants were
28
29 requested to use tag clouds as navigation links. First, participants were introduced to the
30
31
32
principle of tag clouds. Then they were presented tag clouds. They were told that the tags
33
34 would originate “from different sources of the Internet, like online wine communities and
35
36 wine retailers”. Participants were instructed to click on that tag of each tag cloud which they
37
38
39 thought would be most appropriate for leading to a typical Georgian wine. Two tag clouds
40
41 represented related tags (wine regions). After having clicked on one tag of the first tag cloud,
42
43
44 the next tag cloud appeared. The following tag cloud was independent of the tag choice in the
45
46 first tag cloud. We only presented tag clouds, but no corresponding resources. At the end of
47
48
49 the experiment a knowledge test was given.
50
51
52
53
54
3.2.3 Design and independent variables
55
56 We applied a 5 x 4 between-subjects design. The participants were randomly assigned
57
58 to the 20 experimental conditions. The first independent variable was the user’s individual
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60
strength of association between the wine region “Kakheti” and Georgian wine. We
61
62
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65
manipulated this variable by varying the content of the wine list that was presented in the first
1
2 phase of the experiment. We presented a wine list with five Georgian wines to the users. In
3
4
5 the particular conditions the number of wines originating from “Kakheti” was varied. In the
6
7 following text this variable will be called frequency Kakheti. The variable had five
8
9
10 progressive levels indicating how often wines from the region “Kakheti” were represented in
11
12 the wine list (cf. Held & Cress, 2010): they were either (1) not part of the list (lowest
13
14
15
individual strength of association; see Figure 4a); or they were in the list (2) once; (3) twice;
16
17 (4) three times; (5) four times (highest individual strength of association; see Figure 4b).
18
19 “Kakheti” was the only wine region that was both part of the wine list and reappeared in the
20
21
22 subsequent tag clouds.
23
25
26
27 The second independent variable was the collective strength of association for the
28
29 wine region “Imereti” (provided by a fictitious tagging community). Here we varied the size
30
31
32
of the tag “Imereti” in the tag clouds which the participants encountered in the second phase
33
34 of the experiment (cf. Held & Cress, 2010). This independent variable, which will be called
35
36 size Imereti in the following text, had four progressive levels: (1) the tag “Imereti” had the
37
38
39 same size as “Kakheti” (lowest collective strength of association; see Figure 5a) with both
40
41 tags representing the largest tags in the tag cloud; (2) the tag “Imereti was 33% larger; (3)
42
43
44 “Imereti” was 67% larger; (4) “Imereti” twice as large as in condition 1 (highest collective
45
46 strength of association; see Figure 5b). All other tags did not differ in size.
47
48
50
51
52
53
54
3.2.4 Dependent measures
55
56 The navigation behavior of users for relevant tags was measured by analyzing the log-
57
58 files of the users’ clicking behavior. The dependent variables navigation Kakheti and
59
60
61 navigation Imereti were assessed by logging how often the tags “Kakheti” or “Imereti”
62
63
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65
respectively were used for navigating the two tag clouds. For each of the dependent variables
1
2 navigation Kakheti and navigation Imereti the number of clicks could range between 0 and 2
3
4
5 (cf. Held & Cress, 2010).
6
7 In order to measure incidental learning processes we used the three dependent
8
9
10 variables rating Kakheti, rating Imereti and judgment. The dependent variables rating Kakheti
11
12 and rating Imereti assessed the participants’ strength of association for the region “Kakheti”
13
14
15
and, respectively, the region “Imereti” after the navigation task. After phase 2 the participants
16
17 had to complete a knowledge test in which they had to indicate how strongly they associated
18
19 “Kakheti” and “Imereti” respectively with wine from Georgia (“How typical is the wine
20
21
22 region Kakheti for Georgian wine?”). The rating scales for the participants’ answers ranged
23
24 from (1) very untypical to (7) very typical.
25
26
27 The variable judgment measured the relative strength of association of “Kakheti” in
28
29 comparison with “Imereti”. For the assessment of this variable, users were asked which
30
31
32
Georgian wine region they would select if they had to purchase a typical wine from Georgia.
33
34 They had to choose between the alternatives “Kakheti” and “Imereti”. The dependent variable
35
36 judgment was coded (-1) if participants selected “Kakheti” and (1) if they selected “Imereti”,
37
38
39 so a negative value represented a higher strength of association for “Kakheti” and a positive
40
41 value represented a higher strength for “Imereti” (cf. Held & Cress, 2010).
42
43
44 In order to measure tag processing for the tags presented in the tag clouds, we used the
45
46 dependent variable recognition. We assessed the recognition of tags after the navigation task
47
48
49 in a multiple choice test consisting of tags that had been contained in the tag clouds (seven
50
51 items) and tags that had not been presented in the tag clouds (nine items). The participants’
52
53
54
task was to identify those tags that had been displayed in the tag clouds. The score was
55
56 computed as the sum of correctly selected tags minus falsely selected tags. Tags that were
57
58 manipulated (i.e., “Kakheti” and “Imereti”) were not included in the recognition score (cf.
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
Held & Cress, 2010). Table 1 provides an overview of the independent and dependent
1
2 variables.
3
4
5 ----- Insert Table 1 about here -----
6
7
8
9
10 3.3 Results
11
12 In order to test the impact of the individual strength of association (operationalized as
13
14
15
frequency Kakheti) and the collective strength of association (operationalized as size Imereti)
16
17 on the dependent variables, we conducted separate multiple regression analyses with the
18
19 predictors frequency Kakheti, size Imereti, and the interaction frequency Kakheti x size
20
21
22 Imereti, and the dependent variables as criteria. We centered the predictor variables and
23
24 computed the interaction term by a multiplication of both variables (cf. Aiken & West, 1991).
25
26
27 We computed a hierarchical regression analysis for each hypothesis. Frequency Kakheti and
28
29 size Imereti were entered in the first and the interaction term in the second step. This
30
31
32
procedure was chosen to compute a joint test for the interaction term (i.e., an R² change test).
33
34 All regression weights reported are derived from the final equation.
35
36 Tables 2 and 3 present an overview of all results. In the following sub-sections the results are
37
38
39 explained for each of the dependent variables separately.
40
42
43
45
46
47
48
49 3.3.1 Navigation
50
51 H1 predicted that a higher frequency Kakheti, that is, a higher individual strength of
52
53
54
association, would affect navigation and lead to a higher probability of selecting “Kakheti”,
55
56 whereas a larger—contradicting—size Imereti, that is, a higher collective strength of
57
58 association, would attenuate this tendency. The regression analysis with the criterion
59
60
61 navigation Kakheti confirmed these main effects: frequency Kakheti significantly increased
62
63
64
65
the selection rate of the tag “Kakheti”, whereas size Imereti significantly decreased it. There
1
2 was no significant interaction effect (see Held & Cress, 2010).
3
4
5 H1 also predicted that a larger size Imereti would lead to a higher probability of
6
7 selecting “Imereti”, whereas the—contradicting—frequency Kakheti would lead to the
8
9
10 opposite effect. The regression analysis with the criterion navigation Imereti confirmed both
11
12 main effects: size Imereti significantly increased the selection rate of the tag “Imereti”,
13
14
15
whereas frequency Kakheti significantly decreased it. There was no significant interaction
16
17 effect (see Held & Cress, 2010).
18
19
20
21
22 3.3.2 Incidental learning
23
24 H2 assumed that users would show incidental learning when they navigate through the
25
26 tag clouds, and adapt their individual to the collective strength of association. The dependent
27
28
29 variables rating Kakheti and rating Imereti assessed the users’ strength of association for
30
31 “Kakheti” and “Imereti” respectively after the navigation task.
32
33
34 While the effect of frequency Kakheti on these ratings showed whether the individual
35
36 association strength was influenced through the presentation of the wine list in the first phase
37
38
39
of the experiment, the effect of size Imereti mirrored the incidental learning processes that
40
41 occurred during navigation. The regression analysis with the criterion rating Kakheti revealed
42
43 two main effects: frequency Kakheti significantly increased rating Kakheti (β = .25, p < .001)
44
45
46 and size Imereti significantly decreased it (β = -.10, p < .05), adjusted R² = .07, F(2, 528) =
47
48 20.51, p < .001. The prediction for the interaction effect was not significant (β = .03, p = .56),
49
50
51 R² change < .01, F(1, 527) = 0.35, p = .56.
52
53 H2 also assumed that a larger size Imereti would increase rating Imereti while a higher
54
55
56 frequency Kakheti would reduce it. To test these predictions a regression analysis with the
57
58 criterion rating Imereti was computed. The predictions for the main effects were confirmed:
59
60
frequency Kakheti significantly decreased rating Imereti (β = -.14, p < .01) and size Imereti
61
62
63
64
65
significantly increased it (β = .21, p < .001), adjusted R² = .06, F(2, 528) = 16.78, p < .001.
1
2 There was no significant interaction effect (β < .01, p = .92). R² change < .01, F(1, 527) =
3
4
5 0.01, p = .92.
6
7 In general, rating Kakheti was significantly correlated with navigation Kakheti, r =
8
9
10 .47, p < .001, and rating Imereti was significantly correlated with navigation Imereti, r = .32,
11
12 p < .001.
13
14
15
The effect of frequency Kakheti on judgment showed whether the individual
16
17 association strength was influenced through the presentation of the wine list and whether the
18
19 effect of size Imereti on judgment indicated incidental learning through social tags. The
20
21
22 dependent variable judgment assessed the relative strength of association for “Imereti” in
23
24 comparison to “Kakheti”. According to H2, we assumed that a larger size Imereti would lead
25
26
27 to a higher probability of deciding in favor of the alternative “Imereti”. The regression
28
29 analysis with the criterion judgment yielded two main effects: frequency Kakheti significantly
30
31
32
increased the tendency to choose “Kakheti” and size Imereti significantly increased the
33
34 tendency to judge in favor of “Imereti”. Again, we found no interaction effect (see Held &
35
36 Cress, 2010).
37
38
39 People’s judgment in favor of “Imereti” was significantly correlated with navigation
40
41 Imereti, r = .45 and navigation Kakheti, r = -.51; their judgment was also significantly
42
43
44 correlated with rating Imereti, r = .29, and rating Kakheti, r = -.37 (all ps < .001).
45
46
47
48
49 3.3.3 Tag processing
50
51 H3 predicted that a higher frequency Kakheti and a larger size Imereti would lead to
52
53 less thorough information processing for presented tags and thus reduce the score of
54
55
56 recognition of other tags from the tag cloud. The regression analysis with the criterion
57
58 recognition confirmed the main effect for frequency Kakheti: the higher the individual
59
60
strength of association for “Kakheti” the worse users performed in recognizing the presented
61
62
63
64
65
tags. The other prediction, however, was not confirmed. The analysis did not reveal a
1
2 significant effect for size Imereti nor a significant interaction effect (see Held & Cress, 2010).
3
4
5
6
7
8 3.4 Discussion
9
10 The findings of this experiment supported the model of the extended information scent
11
12
13 and showed linear effects for both individual and collective strength of association on
14
15 navigation, incidental learning, and tag processing. The more a user individually associated a
16
17
18
tag with the topic of interest the higher the probability was that the tag was selected. In
19
20 addition, the larger a tag was—showing a strong collective association with the topic of
21
22 interest—the higher the probability was that this tag was chosen. After the experiment people
23
24
25 adapted their individual to the collective association strength: the higher (lower) the collective
26
27 association between a tag and the topic of interest was, the higher (lower) the individual
28
29
30 association was, measured in the post-test through the dependent variables rating Kakheti,
31
32 rating Imereti, and judgement (see Held & Cress, 2010).
33
34
35
Because in all conditions the individual associations contradicted the collective ones,
36
37 the influences of frequency Kakheti and size Imereti were directly opposed to each other for
38
39 all dependent variables. The effect of the individual associations was slightly stronger than the
40
41
42 effect of the collective associations. No interaction effect was found for any of the dependent
43
44 variables.
45
46
47 Regarding the recognition of tags from the tag cloud, only the individual strength of
48
49 associations had a (negative) effect, but not the collective strength of associations. So the
50
51
52 stronger a user’s association between one tag of the tag cloud and the topic of interest was, the
53
54 less attention the other tags attracted and the less they were cognitively processed. This effect
55
56
did not occur with respect to the collective strengths of associations: independently of how
57
58
59 much larger one tag was in comparison to all the other tags, these other tags were processed
60
61 equally deeply in all conditions. Thus, if a person did not have an association between a tag
62
63
64
65
and the topic of interest before navigation, the over-size of one tag did not lead to a more
1
2 superficial processing of the other tags.
3
4
5 In this first experiment the tag cloud showed tags that addressed directly the topic of
6
7 interest—wine regions of Georgia. The second experiment, in contrast, also considered
8
9
10 indirect effects, that is, a situation in which the tags were just indirectly associated to the topic
11
12 of interest.
13
14
15
16
17 4. Experiment 2
18
19 Spreading activation theories (Anderson, 1983; Collins & Loftus, 1975) assume that
20
21
chunks are connected to other chunks in semantic memory (see section 1.2). Within this
22
23
24 network of chunks, an activation of one chunk leads to the activation of those chunks that are
25
26 associated with this originally activated chunk: for example, when a user hears the word
27
28
29 “butter”, the chunk “butter” is directly activated. But with this activation of the chunk “butter”
30
31 other—associated—chunks are automatically and indirectly activated as well, for example,
32
33
34 the chunk “bread” (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971). As the main goal of this second
35
36 experiment, we investigated how the individual and collective strengths of associations of
37
38
39
these associated chunks and tags affect people’s navigation behavior, incidental learning, and
40
41 information processing.
42
43 In line with the model of spreading activation we claim that tags do not only have an
44
45
46 impact when they are directly related to the topic of interest, but also if they are indirectly
47
48 related through associations. Figure 6 shows these relations within the extended information
49
50
51 scent model.
52
54
55
56 This figure shows tags which are merely related to the topic of interest by the
57
58 collective associations, but not by individual associations. This means that at the beginning of
59
60
the selection task, tags present relations to the topic of interest, which are not part of a user’s
61
62
63
64
65
knowledge structure. These tags are understood, however, based on already established
1
2 associations (“associated concepts”). Based on this model we expect that the processes
3
4
5 assumed in the first experiment will also be found for indirect effects. These considerations
6
7 lead to the following hypotheses.
8
9
10
11
12 4.1 Hypotheses
13
14
15
Navigation (H4): A higher individual strength of association between topic of interest
16
17 and chunks which are associated with a tag leads—indirectly—to a higher selection rate of
18
19 this tag (H4a). A higher collective strength of association between a tag and the topic of
20
21
22 interest leads—directly—to a higher selection rate of this tag (H4b).
23
24 Learning (H5): A higher collective strength of association between a tag and the topic
25
26
27 of interest leads—indirectly—to a higher individual strength of association between the
28
29 concepts representing the topic of interest and associated concepts (H5a). A higher collective
30
31
32
strength of association between a tag and the topic of interest leads—directly—to a higher
33
34 individual strength of association between the topic of interest and the tag (H5b).
35
36 Tag processing (H6): A higher individual strength of association between the topic of
37
38
39 interest and chunks which are associated with a tag leads—indirectly—to more thorough
40
41 information processing for those tags in the tag cloud that are connected to this respective
42
43
44 chunk and less thorough information processing for the other tags (H6a) A higher collective
45
46 strength of association for one chunk leads—directly—to more thorough information
47
48
49 processing for the tag that corresponds to this chunk and less thorough information processing
50
51 for the other tags (H6b).
52
53
54
55
56 4.2 Method
57
58
59
60
4.2.1 Participants
61
62
63
64
65
For this experiment 380 participants were recruited on Amazon Mechanical Turk
1
2 (www.mturk.com). The participants were paid US-$1.80 for the experiment. 112 participants
3
4
5 had to be excluded as they declared that they had prior knowledge about the experiment’s
6
7 topic domain. Of the 268 remaining participants 105 were female and 163 male, the mean age
8
9
10 was 28.43 years (SD = 9.22). The participants came from 39 different countries; most of them
11
12 lived in the United States (47.4%) and India (23.5%).
13
14
15
16
17 4.2.2 Materials and procedure
18
19 The same topic domain was used as in the first experiment. Like in the first study the
20
21
22 participants’ task was separated into two phases. The first phase served to manipulate the
23
24 participants’ individual strength of associations. The participants were asked to provide
25
26
27 feedback on design features of a wine list. They were not requested to memorize any content
28
29 of the wine list and not informed that the content was relevant for the following phase. The
30
31
32
list was presented to the participants for 25 seconds, followed by six general questions about
33
34 the design and information of the list (e.g., “Would it be helpful to provide a price range for
35
36 each wine?”) in order to direct their attention to the content of the list. The wine list was still
37
38
39 viewable to the participants while they answered the questions.
40
41 The second phase was a navigation task. As in the first experiment, participants were
42
43
44 asked to use tag clouds as navigation links. After a general introduction to social tags,
45
46 participants were presented tag clouds and asked to click on that tag which they thought
47
48
49 would be most suitable to bring forth a typical Georgian wine. Two tag clouds were presented
50
51 that represented related tags (wine characteristics). These wine characteristics represented
52
53
54
aromas of wines. These aromas were characteristic (Robinson, 2006) for white wine (the tags
55
56 “lemon”, “peach”, “pineapple”, “grapefruit”), for red wine (the tags “blackberry”, “plum”,
57
58 “raspberry”, “cherry”) or characteristic for wine in general (the tags “dry”, “medium”,
59
60
61 “simple”, “sweet”). How representative these tags were for “white wine” and “red wine” was
62
63
64
65
pre-tested in a short questionnaire that was given to eight other participants before the
1
2 material was used for the experiment. The respective aroma tags that were used for the
3
4
5 experiment had the highest associations for “white wine” and “red wine” in these participants’
6
7 judgment.
8
9
10 The second tag cloud of the task appeared after the participant had clicked on one of
11
12 the tags of the first tag cloud. The second tag cloud was identical to the first one. Only tag
13
14
15
clouds were presented, no corresponding resources were displayed. After the navigation task,
16
17 knowledge tests were presented.
18
19
20
21
22 4.2.3 Design and independent variables
23
24 A 5 x 3 between-subjects design was used. Participants were randomly assigned to one
25
26 of the 15 conditions. As the first independent variable the user’s individual strength of
27
28
29 association between “Georgian wine” and the wine characteristic “white wine” was
30
31 manipulated by varying the content of the wine list, which was presented in the first phase of
32
33
34 the task. Users were presented a wine list with six Georgian wines. In the different conditions
35
36 the number of “white wines” in the list was varied. In the following, this variable will be
37
38
39
called frequency white. The variable had five progressive levels. In the list of six wines the
40
41 number of white wines was varied: either (1) one of the six wines was a white wine (lowest
42
43 individual strength of association; cf. Figure 7a); (2) two wines were white wines; (3) three
44
45
46 wines were white wines; (4) four wines were white wines; or (5) five wines were white wines
47
48 (highest internal strength of association; cf. Figure 7b). In the wine list only white and red
49
50
51 wines were used. Therefore, in the condition of one white wine, the other five wines were red
52
53 wines, in the condition of two white wines, the other four wines were red wines, and so forth.
54
55
56 Consequently, in this experimental setting a higher individual strength of association for the
57
58 associated concepts “white wine” and “Georgia” was equivalent to a lower individual strength
59
60
of association for “red wine” and “Georgia”, and vice versa.
61
62
63
64
65

1
2 As the second independent variable, we manipulated the collective strength of
3
4
5 association for the tags that represented characteristic aromas for “white wine” by varying the
6
7 relative size of the tags “lemon”, “peach”, “pineapple”, and “grapefruit” in the tag cloud. The
8
9
10 size of the tags characterizing aromas of “white wine” was varied in relation to the tags that
11
12 were characteristic for “red wine” (the tags “blackberry”, “plum”, “raspberry”, “cherry”): the
13
14
15
independent variable, which will be called size white aromas in the following text, had three
16
17 continuous levels: (1) the respective tags for aromas of “white wine” were 25% smaller than
18
19 those tags representing aromas of “red wine” (lowest collective strength of association; cf.
20
21
22 Figure 8a); (2) the tags for aromas of “white wine” had the same size as those tags
23
24 representing aromas of “red wine”; or (3) the respective tags for aromas of “white wine” were
25
26
27 25% larger than those tags representing aromas of “red wine” (highest collective strength of
28
29 association; cf. Figure 8b). The tags which were characteristic for wines in general did not
30
31
32
vary in size.
33
35
36
37
38
39 4.2.4 Dependent measures
40
41 The navigation behavior of users for relevant tags was measured by analyzing the log-
42
43
44 files of the users’ clicking behavior. The dependent variable navigation white aromas was
45
46 assessed by logging how often the participants clicked on those tags which represented white
47
48
49 wine aromas for navigating the two tag clouds. For this dependent variable the number of
50
51 clicks could range between 0 and 2.
52
53
54
In order to measure incidental learning processes, the dependent variables judgment
55
56 white and rating lemon were used. The dependent variable judgment white measured the
57
58 relative strength of association of “white wine” in comparison with “red white” as a typical
59
60
61 characteristic of Georgian wine. Users were asked which Georgian wine characteristic they
62
63
64
65
would select if they had to buy a typical wine from Georgia. They had to choose between the
1
2 alternatives “red” and “white”. The dependent variable judgment white was coded (-1) for the
3
4
5 selection of “red” and (1) for the selection of “white”, so a negative value represented a higher
6
7 individual strength of association for “red wine” and a positive value represented a higher
8
9
10 strength for “white wine”. The dependent variable rating lemon assessed the participants’
11
12 strength of association for the aroma “lemon” after the navigation task. Participants indicated
13
14
15
on a rating scale how strongly they associated the aroma “lemon” with wine from Georgia
16
17 (“How typical is the wine characteristic ‘lemon’ for Georgian wine?”). The rating scale
18
19 ranged from (1) very untypical to (7) very typical.
20
21
22 In order to measure tag processing for the tags presented in the tag clouds, the
23
24 dependent variable recognition was used. The recognition of tags was assessed after the
25
26
27 navigation task in a multiple choice test consisting of tags that had been presented in the tag
28
29 clouds and tags that had not been part of the tag clouds. The participants’ task was to correctly
30
31
32
identify those tags which had been presented in the tag clouds. The specific purpose of this
33
34 variable was to investigate to what extent the independent variables affected the information
35
36 processing of tags representing white aromas, in comparison with tags representing red
37
38
39 aromas. Therefore, the score was calculated as the sum of correctly identified items of tags
40
41 representing white wine aromas minus the sum of correctly identified items of tags
42
43
44 representing red wine aromas.
45
46
47
48
49 4.3 Results
50
51 Analogous to Experiment 1, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted
52
53
54
with the predictors frequency white, size white aromas and the interaction of frequency white
55
56 x size white aromas, and the dependent variables as criteria. Because in this second
57
58 experiment an associated concept represented either a white or a red wine aroma, there is—in
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
contrast to the first study—only one dependent variable each for navigation, judgment, and
1
2 rating. Tables 4, 5, and 6 present an overview of all results.
3
4
6
8
9
11
12
13
14
15
4.3.1 Navigation
16
17 To test H4 a regression analysis with the criterion navigation white aromas was
18
19 computed. The prediction for the main effect of H4a was confirmed: frequency white
20
21
significantly increased the selection rate of those tags which represented white aromas (β =
22
23
24 .12, p < .05). The prediction for the main effect of H4b was also confirmed: size white aromas
25
26 significantly increased the selection rate of tags which represented white aromas (β = .26, p <
27
28
29 .001), adjusted R² = .07, F(2, 265) = 11.28, p < .001. No significant interaction effect of
30
31 frequency white x size white aromas was found (β = .09, p = .13), R² change < .01, F(1, 264)
32
33
34 = 2.36, p = .13.
35
36
37
38
39
4.3.2 Incidental learning
40
41 H5 expected that users would show incidental learning when they navigate through the
42
43 tag clouds, and (indirectly and directly) adapt to the collective strengths of associations. The
44
45
46
dependent variable judgment white assessed the relative individual strength of association for
47
48 “white wine” (and “Georgian wine”) in comparison with “red wine” (and “Georgian wine”).
49
50 While the effect of frequency white on people’s judgment shows whether the individual
51
52
53 strength of association was influenced by the presentation of the wine list (H5b)—and may be
54
55 considered as a manipulation check—the effect of size white aromas mirrors indirect
56
57
58 incidental learning through the navigation with social tags (H5a). Both effects were found as
59
60 expected: frequency white significantly increased the tendency to choose “white wine” (β =
61
62
63
64
65
.36, p < .001), adjusted R² = .14, F(2, 265) = 21.84, p < .001; and also size white aromas
1
2 significantly increased the tendency to judge in favor of “white wine” (β = .12, p < .05). No
3
4
5 significant interaction effect of frequency white x size white aromas was found (β = .06, p =
6
7 .33), R² change < .01, F(1, 264) = 0.97, p = .33.
8
9
10 Rating lemon assessed the users’ strength of association between the wine aroma
11
12 “lemon” and wine of Georgia after the navigation task. The effect of size white aromas on
13
14
15
rating lemon mirrors the direct incidental learning that occurred during navigation (H5b): it
16
17 was assumed that the participants would adapt to the collective strength of association, so that
18
19 a higher collective strength of association for the tag “lemon”, that is, a larger size white
20
21
22 aromas, would lead to a higher individual strength of association for the chunk “lemon” as
23
24 well. The regression analysis with the criterion rating lemon confirmed the influence of size
25
26
27 white aromas (β = .30, p < .001), but, in contrast to the assumption of H5a, not of frequency
28
29 white (β = .07, p = .22), adjusted R² = .09, F(2, 265) = 14.76, p < .001. No significant
30
31
32
interaction effect of frequency white x size white aromas was found (β = -.03, p = .63), R²
33
34 change < .01, F(1, 264) = 0.24, p = .63.
35
36
37
38
39
4.3.3 Tag processing
40
41 H6 predicted that a higher individual strength of association for a chunk with the topic
42
43 of interest (higher frequency white), would indirectly lead to more thorough information
44
45
46
processing—and thus to a higher score in recognition—for those tags that are connected to
47
48 this respective chunk (“white wine”) in the semantic memory (H6a). On the other hand, it was
49
50 predicted that a higher collective strength of association, that is, a larger size white aromas,
51
52
53 would directly lead to more thorough information processing—a higher score in
54
55 recognition—for these respective tags representing white wine aromas (H6b).
56
57
58 To test these predictions, a regression analysis with the criterion recognition was
59
60 computed. Both predictions for the main effects of H6a and H6b were confirmed: frequency
61
62
63
64
65
white (β = .13, p < .05) and size white aromas (β = .20, p < .01) significantly increased
1
2 recognition, adjusted R² = .05, F(2, 265) = 8.63, p < .001. No significant interaction effect of
3
4
5 frequency white x size white aromas was found (β = -.02, p = .80), R² change < .01, F(1, 264)
6
7 = 0.06, p = .80.
8
9
10
11
12 4.4 Discussion
13
14
15
Based on the assumptions of spreading activation theories, this second experiment
16
17 primarily investigated the indirect effects of associations in semantic memory. The main goal
18
19 was to examine whether the individual and the collective strength of associations of those
20
21
22 chunks that are connected to other chunks in semantic memory would affect navigation,
23
24 incidental learning, and information processing in social tagging systems. The results
25
26
27 supported the expectations and showed that all proposed direct and indirect effects of tags on
28
29 navigation, learning, and information processing did occur (except for the effect of frequency
30
31
32
white on rating lemon, which was too small to reach significance). In all cases, the direct
33
34 effects were larger than the indirect effects. Analogous to the first experiment, we found no
35
36 significant interaction effects between individual and collective strengths of associations.
37
38
39 Although these indirect effects of connected chunks seem to play a less obvious role
40
41 than direct effects in the navigation process, they have a crucial impact on Web search,
42
43
44 learning, and information processing: a person who searches for information in the Web
45
46 evaluates and uses a plenitude of links. Therefore, a user is indirectly influenced by many
47
48
49 associations that are part of the network of semantic memory.
50
51 We assumed that a higher individual strength of association for a chunk would also
52
53
54
lead to a higher individual strength of association for those chunks which are connected to this
55
56 chunk in the semantic memory. Therefore, we expected that a higher individual strength of
57
58 association for a chunk would indirectly lead to a higher information scent—and a higher
59
60
61 selection rate—for those tags which correspond to chunks that are associated with this
62
63
64
65
respective chunk in the semantic memory. This assumption of an indirect effect of connected
1
2 chunks on navigation was clearly supported by the data: users selected those tags more
3
4
5 frequently that were indirectly activated by a higher individual strength of association with a
6
7 connected chunk.
8
9
10 Regarding the indirect effect of social tags on incidental learning, it was expected that
11
12 a higher collective strength of association for chunks (represented as larger font sizes of tags)
13
14
15
would lead to a higher individual strength of association for one single chunk (that is not
16
17 visualized in the tag cloud) which is connected to those chunks which were part of the tag
18
19 cloud. So, on the basis of spreading activation considerations, it was assumed that users would
20
21
22 indirectly adapt their individual strength of association for one chunk to the collective strength
23
24 of association—when those tags are visualized which are connected to this chunk in semantic
25
26
27 memory. This indirect effect of incidental learning was also found: a higher collective
28
29 strength of association led to a higher individual strength of association for a connected chunk
30
31
32
(which was not represented in the tag cloud).
33
34 Furthermore, it was assumed that a higher individual strength of association for a
35
36 chunk would indirectly lead to more thorough information processing for those tags in the
37
38
39 navigation process which correspond to this chunk. This assumption of an indirect effect on
40
41 information processing during navigation was supported as well: a higher individual strength
42
43
44 of association for one chunk led to a higher recognition for those tags which were connected
45
46 to this chunk in the semantic memory.
47
48
49 Finally, the results of this experiment confirmed the results of the first experiment
50
51 regarding the direct effects of the individual and collective strengths of association on
52
53
54
processes of navigation, incidental learning, and tag processing within the setting of social
55
56 tagging systems. In accordance with the findings of the first experiment, no interaction effects
57
58 occurred here either.
59
60
61
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65
5. General discussion
1
2 When people navigate through the Web in order to search for information, they are
3
4 significantly influenced by their individual prior knowledge as well as by the collective
5
6
7 knowledge of the Web community which they encounter. This influence not only affects their
8
9 navigation behavior, but also how users process information and acquire knowledge. This
10
11
12 article aimed at examining this interplay of individual and collective knowledge in the context
13
14 of social tagging scenarios. In order to provide an appropriate theoretical framework for this
15
16
17 examination, we employed three approaches as a basis for our considerations:
18
19 a) Spreading activation theories, which assume that chunks are connected to other
20
21
chunks in people’s memory and that the activation of one chunk may also lead to the
22
23
24 activation of other—associated—chunks. In other words, it is assumed that, beyond an
25
26 originally activated chunk, other (associated) chunks may be indirectly activated as well.
27
28
29 b) Information foraging theory, which assumes that the strength of association and the
30
31 corresponding activation of chunks are relevant for Web navigation. Users follow links which
32
33
34 they think they would lead to a desired resource. Tags serve as a basis for the judgment as to
35
36 whether or not following a link would be helpful for reaching a relevant resource. This
37
38
39
estimation represents the information scent of a link.
40
41 c) The co-evolution model of cognitive and social systems, which describes how
42
43 people’s individual knowledge and the collective knowledge of a community may
44
45
46 reciprocally contribute to their mutual development. In other words, this model posits how
47
48 individual learning and collaborative knowledge building take place.
49
50
51 On the basis of these theoretical approaches we developed a model of an extended
52
53 information scent, which proposes that not only individual knowledge but also collective
54
55
56 knowledge have a significant influence on link selection, incidental learning, and information
57
58 processing. In this model, the individual and the collective knowledge structures are defined
59
60
according to the distal information (i.e., the topic of interest) and the proximal cues (i.e., the
61
62
63
64
65
tags). The individual knowledge structure is based on individual representations (chunks) and
1
2 the collective knowledge structure on tags and their interrelations. The model claims that the
3
4
5 extended information scent is a linear function of the individual and the collective association
6
7 strengths. Individual learning processes take place when the individual representation of a
8
9
10 topic of interest adapts to an external presentation.
11
12 Two experimental studies examined this extended information scent model. In
13
14
15
Experiment 1 we studied how tags influence navigation, learning, and information processing
16
17 when they are directly related to the topic of interest. In Experiment 2 we examined,
18
19 additionally, the impact of tags when they are only indirectly related through associations.
20
21
22 Both studies largely supported the relevance of an extended information scent, as they showed
23
24 linear effects for both individual and collective strengths of association on navigation,
25
26
27 incidental learning, and tag processing. In the first experiment, the tag cloud displayed tags
28
29 that addressed directly the topic of interest. The second experiment, however also found
30
31
32
indirect effects. The results accentuate how the associations in a large network of chunks in
33
34 the semantic memory affect navigation, learning, and information processing: not only the
35
36 individual and collective strength of association for chunks (and the corresponding tags) that
37
38
39 are directly connected with a search goal and specific links play a crucial role for these
40
41 processes, but also those associations that are indirectly connected to those chunks within the
42
43
44 semantic memory.
45
46 The results show that the knowledge representation and the individual strengths of
47
48
49 association of chunks have not only a direct but also an indirect effect on the selection of links
50
51 during Web search. If the search process is based on incorrect associations in the semantic
52
53
54
network, these indirect effects may further contribute to the selection of suboptimal
55
56 navigation paths. The results regarding the indirect effect of the strength of association for
57
58 connected chunks on information processing also emphasize that already existing associations
59
60
61 may indirectly reinforce this (potentially suboptimal) navigation behavior: users pay more
62
63
64
65
attention to those links which correspond to chunks that already possess a high strength of
1
2 association.
3
4
5 So, on the one hand, the indirect effects may reinforce a certain selection behavior. On
6
7 the other hand, the results show that these indirect effects may also have a positive effect and
8
9
10 contribute to learning processes of users during navigation as they adapt their individual
11
12 strength of associations to the collective knowledge of the Web community: users indirectly
13
14
15
adapt their own individual associations to those associations that are connected to chunks
16
17 which are represented as collective associations in social tags. In this way, users learn from
18
19 the externalized knowledge of social tags in both a direct and indirect way.
20
21
22 Altogether, the results demonstrated that the prior knowledge and the associations in
23
24 the network of people’s memory determine the link selection and the path of navigation when
25
26
27 users search for information on the Web. When users possess deficient knowledge, this may
28
29 lead to suboptimal search results. Moreover, the results of the experiments showed that the
30
31
32
collective knowledge of social tags can help to reveal superior navigation paths: users will
33
34 learn from the collective strengths of associations and, in case of incorrect associations, will
35
36 change their own knowledge representations by adapting to the collective knowledge (cf.
37
38
39 Held & Cress, 2010). During the navigation process people implicitly learn from the network
40
41 of associations from other Web users, and adapt their individual strengths of association
42
43
44 accordingly. The results show that especially tag clouds are useful tools for visualizing the
45
46 collective knowledge of Web communities: collective strengths of association can be
47
48
49 presented as differences in font size and, in this way, the specific strengths of collective
50
51 associations can be visualized and help to trigger exchange processes with users’ individual
52
53
54
associations.
55
56 Across both experiments no significant interaction effects between individual and
57
58 collective strengths of associations could be found. This lack of interaction effects suggests
59
60
61 that processes of individual and collective knowledge are independent of each other. One
62
63
64
65
explanation for this could be that different memory systems were involved. For example, the
1
2 variables frequency Kakheti and frequency white could have influenced semantic processes,
3
4
5 whereas the variables size Imereti and size white aromas could have affected perceptual,
6
7 mainly attention-related processes. Another explanation for these results could be found in the
8
9
10 specifics of the search tasks of the experiments, which were mostly characterized by an
11
12 unfamiliar topic domain with a low relevance to the users. So the absent semantic relevance
13
14
15
might explain that a contradicting individual and collective strength of association did not
16
17 provoke a cognitive conflict for the users and, therefore, did not lead to any interaction
18
19 effects. These effects might occur, however, in situations or for topic domains with a higher
20
21
22 task relevance, which may provoke a stronger involvement of users. So individual
23
24 involvement in search tasks might be an interesting variable for further research.
25
26
27 Another limitation of the current experiments is that we used very circumscribed and
28
29 static scenarios in which only few tag clouds were provided for navigation. Even though the
30
31
32
participants had only few possibilities to learn from the tag clouds (and were not instructed to
33
34 use the tag clouds for learning), the results provided convincing evidence for the impact of
35
36 social tags on learning during navigation. It can be assumed that learning processes could
37
38
39 have been intensified in a dynamic and larger scenario of social tagging with the opportunity
40
41 to use more tag clouds and to use the same or similar tag clouds in a dynamic setting of
42
43
44 information search. For future studies it seems an interesting field of research to use social
45
46 tags in a larger and more dynamic setting. Furthermore, these scenarios could also embed
47
48
49 other features and resources (such as products and articles) in order to create a more
50
51 comprehensive scenario of the Web 2.0 (e.g., Nelson, Held, Pirolli, Hong, Schiano, & Chi,
52
53
54
2009).
55
56 Finally, we want to point out the necessity of future studies to examine the direct and
57
58 indirect effects using the extended information scent model in other contexts as well. One
59
60
61 exciting and highly relevant field of application, beyond Internet scenarios, would be
62
63
64
65
classroom settings in schools, universities, or adult continuing education. Since we found

1
2 clear effects on people’s learning processes, we are convinced that it will be interesting to re-
3
4
5 examine our assumptions and findings in applied scenarios of formal and informal education.
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Figure captions
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2 Figure 1. A tag cloud representing tags related to ‘red wine aroma’. The font size visualizes
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5 the collective strength of association between ‘red wine aroma’ and the tags.
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7 Figure 2. Different information scents of various tags.
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10 Figure 3. Extended information scent model.
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12 Figure 4. Wine lists varying the internal strength of association for “Kakheti”, representing
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the lowest and the highest level: a) the wine region “Kakheti” is not included in the list; b)
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17 four of the wines presented originate from “Kakheti” (cf. Held & Cress, 2010).
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19 Figure 5. Tag clouds varying the collective strength of association for the wine region
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22 “Imereti”, representing the lowest and the highest level: a) “Imereti” has the same size as
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24 “Kakheti”; b) “Imereti” is 100% larger than in the condition of the lowest level (cf. Held &
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27 Cress, 2010).
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29 Figure 6. Extended information scent of tags in a model with associated chunks.
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Figure 7. Wine lists varying the individual strength of association for the wine characteristic
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34 “white wine”, representing the lowest and the highest level: a) one of the wines is a white
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36 wine (lowest strength of association); b) five of the wines are white wines (highest strength of
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39 association).
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41 Figure 8. Tag clouds varying the collective strength of association of wine aromas for white
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44 wine, with tag clouds representing the lowest and the highest level: a) tags representing white
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46 wine aromas 25% smaller than tags representing red wine aromas; b) tags representing white
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49 wine aromas 25% larger than tags representing red wine aromas.
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Figure 1
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Figure 8
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Table captions
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2 Table 1. Overview of the independent and dependent variables in both experiments.
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5 Table 2. Means with SDs in brackets of dependent measures as a function of frequency
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7 Kakheti with different levels of how often the wine region “Kakheti” was part of the wine list.
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10 Table 3. Means with SDs in brackets of dependent measures as a function of size Imereti with
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12 different levels of the tag size of “Imereti”.
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Table 4. Standardized regression weights from multiple regressions of dependent measures on
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17 frequency white, size white aromas and the interaction frequency white x size white aromas.
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19 Table 5. Means with SDs in brackets of dependent measures as a function of frequency white
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22 with the different number of white wines in the wine list.
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24 Table 6. Means with SDs in brackets of dependent measures as a function of size white
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27 aromas with different levels of the relative size for tags representing white aromas.
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Table 1
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4 Exp. 1 Independent variables: Dependent variables:
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7 - ‘Individual strength of association’ - ‘Navigation’ measured as
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9 operationalized as o navigation Kakheti
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o frequency Kakheti (5 levels) o navigation Imereti
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13 - ‘Collective strength of association’ - ‘Incidental learning’ measured as
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15 operationalized as o rating Kakheti
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o size Imereti (4 levels) o rating Imereti
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21 - ‘Tag processing’ measured as
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o recognition
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25 Exp. 2 Independent variables: Dependent variables:
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28 - ‘Individual strength of association’ - ‘Navigation’ measured as
29 operationalized as o Navigation white aromas
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31 o frequency white (5 levels)
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34 - ‘Collective strength of association’ o rating lemon
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operationalized as o judgment white
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37 o size white aromas (3 levels)
38 - ‘Tag processing’ measured as
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40 o recognition
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Table 2
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5 Frequency Kakheti (individual strength of association)
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7 0 1 2 3 4
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10 Navigation 0.39 (0.64) 0.57 (0.79) 0.94 (0.86) 0.93 (0.79) 1.21 (0.85)
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Kakheti
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14 Navigation 0.57 (0.75) 0.50 (0.72) 0.45 (0.73) 0.44 (0.68) 0.41 (0.72)
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16 Imereti
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18 Rating Kakheti 4.50 (1.65) 4.67 (1.54) 4.81 (1.75) 5.20 (1.82) 5.74 (1.39)
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Rating Imereti 4.88 (1.65) 4.48 (1.60) 4.35 (1.74) 4.27 (1.76) 4.22 (1.58)
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23 Judgment 0.21 (0.98) - 0.03 (1.00) - 0.40 (0.92) - 0.38 (0.93) - 0.60 (0.80)
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25 Recognition 1.78 (1.96) 1.49 (1.90) 1.30 (1.61) 1.09 (1.50) 1.25 (1.50)
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Table 3
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5 Size Imereti (collective strength of association)
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7 (1) Smallest (2) “Imereti” (3) “Imereti” (4) “Imereti”
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9 size “Imereti” 33% larger 67% larger 100% larger
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Navigation 0.97 (0.83) 0.77 (0.82) 0.72 (0.81) 0.70 (0.86)
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13 Kakheti
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16 Navigation 0.19 (0.45) 0.47 (0.72) 0.58 (0.77) 0.67 (0.81)
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18
Imereti
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20 Rating Kakheti 5.29 (1.74) 4.97 (1.52) 4.60 (1.79) 4.93 (1.65)
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22 Rating Imereti 3.86 (1.64) 4.43 (1.56) 4.75 (1.68) 4.78 (1.69)
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Judgment - 0.56 (0.83) - 0.28 (0.96) - 0.07 (1.00) 0.05 (1.00)
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27 Recognition 1.35 (1.52) 1.39 (1.74) 1.35 (1.82) 1.49 (1.84)
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Table 4
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5 Predictors Frequency white Size white aromas
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7 (individual (collective strength Frequency white x
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strength of of association) size white aromas
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10 Criteria
association)
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12 Navigation white .12* (i) .26*** (d) .09
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14 aromas
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16 Judgment white .36*** (d) .12* (i) .06
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19 Rating lemon .07 (i) .30*** (d) -.03
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21 Recognition .13* (i) .20** (d) -.02
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24 Note: *p<.05, **p<.01,***p<.001
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26 (d) and (i) indicate direct and indirect effects.
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Table 5
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5 Frequency white (individual strength of association)
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7 1 2 3 4 5
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10 Navigation white 0.28 (0.54) 0.39 (0.75) 0.43 (0.78) 0.41 (0.73) 0.54 (0.79)
11 aromas
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14 Judgment white - 0.65 (0.77) - 0.53 (0.86) - 0.57 (0.83) 0.18 (1.00) 0.19 (0.99)
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16 Rating lemon 3.94 (1.54) 3.80 (1.80) 4.00 (1.97) 4.07 (1.35) 4.29 (1.66)
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Recognition - 0.47 (1.04) - 0.29 (1.19) - 0.35 (1.32) - 0.37 (1.33) 0.10 (1.27)
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Table 6
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5 Size white aromas (collective strength of association)
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7 (1) White aromas (2) White aromas (3) White aromas
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9 25% smaller than as large as red 25% larger than
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11 red aromas aromas red aromas
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13 Navigation white 0.21 (0.57) 0.36 (0.66) 0.66 (0.83)
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15 aromas
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17 Judgment white - 0.45 (0.90) - 0.26 (0.97) - 0.16 (0.99)
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20 Rating lemon 3.46 (1.32) 3.91 (1.60) 4.72 (1.82)
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22 Recognition - 0.62 (1.18) - 0.20 (1.27) 0.01 (1.16)
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Running Head: The Collective Knowledge of Social Tags 1

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Running head: THE COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL TAGS 1

Learning, and Information Processing

Ulrike Cress and Christoph Held

Knowledge Media Research Center, Tuebingen, Germany

University of Tuebingen, Germany

Ulrike Cress, Knowledge Construction Lab, Knowledge Media Research Center,

Tuebingen, Germany; Christoph Held, Knowledge Construction Lab, Knowledge Media

Research Center, Tuebingen, Germany; Joachim Kimmerle, Department of Applied Cognitive

Psychology and Media Psychology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany.

the Cognitive Science Society 2010 (Held & Cress, 2010).

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Joachim Kimmerle,

Department of Applied Cognitive Psychology and Media Psychology, University of

Tuebingen, Schleichstr. 4, D-72076 Tuebingen, Germany. E-mail: j.kimmerle@iwm-kmrc.de

Running head: THE COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL TAGS 1

The strength of association determines the retrieval of chunks in semantic memory: in

----- Insert Figure 7 about here -----

classroom settings in schools, universities, or adult continuing education. Since we found

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