🎯 Information foraging theory aims to explain and predict how people will best shape themselves for their information environments and how those environments can best be shaped for people.
💡 The theory is guided by three maxims from Allen Newell’s program of Unified Theories of Cognition: 1. 📢 Good science responds to real problems. 2. 🛠️ Good science makes a difference, providing the basis for new technology designs. 3. 🔍 Good science is in the details, aiming to produce working formal models for the analysis and prediction of observable behavior.
🔬 The methodology of the theory is more akin to the methodology of biology than that of physics. This is due to its reliance on metaphors, models, and techniques from optimal foraging theory in biology.
💸 The theory addresses the problem that a 💰 wealth of information creates a 😔 poverty of attention. The core design problem is to increase the ⏩ rate at which people can find and attend to information that is truly of value.
📚 The theory also uses production system models to specify the mechanistic structures and processes that implement bounded rationality.
🤔 Evaluation
Comparison and Contrast: This theory 🔄 contrasts with much of historical experimental psychology by adopting a methodology more like that of biology. It also provides a more complete explanation than purely mechanistic analyses of human-computer interaction (HCI). The theory draws upon work from behavioral ecology and microeconomics, as well as computational cognitive modeling.
Topics to Explore: An open question remains as to why humans have evolved such information collection strategies. Further exploration could delve into the “probabilistically textured information environment” which differs from the well-defined tasks that have been the dominant paradigms in HCI.
📚 Book Recommendations
🧭🍎 Foraging Theory. 🐦 This book provides the foundational biological concepts of optimal foraging theory that Information Foraging Theory draws upon.
The Architecture of Cognition. 🧠 A classic work that details the production systems and cognitive architecture that are extended in Information Foraging Theory.
The Adaptive Character of Thought. 🤔 This work provides the foundation for the rational analysis approach that is central to Information Foraging Theory.
The Economics of Information. 📈 A seminal paper that explores the economic concepts of information, which is a key influence on the theory.
Models of My Life. 🧩 An autobiography that discusses the concept of bounded rationality, a key idea contrasted with pure optimality in information foraging.