A user interaction model based on the principle of polyrepresentation

Abstract

Recently, the cognitively motivated principle of polyrepresentation has been shown to correlate with quantum mechanics-inspired IR models. The principle's core hypothesis is that a document is defined by different representations such as low-level features, textual content, or the user's context. Eventually, these representations can be used to form a cognitive overlap in which highly relevant documents are likely to be contained. In this work, we present a user interaction model mapping the principle onto a quantum logic-based retrieval model. The novelty of our approach is that - because of the cognitive basis of our work - the same model can be used from the retrieval model up to the user interaction model resulting in a new consistency throughout the interactive retrieval process. To cope with the inherent dynamics of the search process, the model allows users to use relevance feedback to further personalize the cognitive overlap. In addition, we address the open issue of information need drifts, i.e., if the cognitive overlap has to be adjusted. The accompanying experiments in the CBIR domain indicate the utility of our approach. Regarding relevance feedback, the retrieval model adjusts well even to small feedback data. If relevance feedback is not feasible, the retrieval performs appropriately for structured or unstructured queries, which are both supported to model the cognitive overlap. In conclusion, we discuss the potential of the presented approach for multimodal retrieval, how it can contribute to bridging DB and IR, and relate it to other contributions. © 2011 ACM.