This Is the Final Submitted Version. the Printed Version Contains Small Changes

This is the final submitted version. The printed version contains small changes.

The importance of theories of knowledge:

browsing as an example

Birger Hjørland

Royal School of Library and Information Science

6 Birketinget

DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark

Email:

Abstract

The recent study on information science (IS) by Bates (2007) is an important contribution to the literature on browsing in IS. It is explicitly based on “behavioural science.” The present paper uses Bates (2007) as the point of departure for demonstrating how more social and interpretative understandings may provide fruitful improvements for research in information seeking, browsing and related phenomena. It is part of the author’s ongoing publication of articles about philosophical issues in IS and it is intended to be accompanied by analyses of other examples of contributions to core issues in IS. Although it is formulated as a discussion based on a specific paper it should be seen as part of a general discussion of the philosophical foundation of IS and as support forthe emerging social paradigm in this field. The paper argues that human browsing should not primarily be conceptualized in biological terms and should not be understood as randomexploratory processesbut as a kind of orienting strategygoverned by people's metatheories or “paradigms.”

Introduction

The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate implications of theories of knowledge by considering a published study in information science (IS) from a theory of knowledge perspective in orderto analyze its epistemological position and to demonstrate how an alternative view contributes to the further advancement of the field.Bates (2007)is an important and interesting study where the authorprovides a new definition of browsing and provides support for this view in psychology and behavioral ecology. It is openly available on the Internet. Bates (2007) also discusses the implications of her understanding for information systems design.

The purpose of our analysis in this paper is to examine Bates (2007) from the perspective of epistemology/theory of knowledge and thereby to argue that there are alternative ways to look at this important issue and that such alternative approaches may be able to advance IS in a fruitful way.

“Behavioral science,” “the behavioral view” and some alternative views

The two most influential schools or “paradigms” in psychology in the twentieth century (in the USAand thus also internationally) werebehaviorism and cognitivism.These views have also been influential in other fields, including IS. According to a bibliometric study conductedby Robins, Gosling, andCraik (1999, p. 122) behaviorism dominated until about 1971, after which cognitivism took over. Although cognitivism is probably still the dominant view in psychology (butbehaviorism is still a view with some influence) alternative views are getting stronger and the criticism of behaviorism and cognitivism is also becoming much stronger and difficult to ignore (Billig, 1996;HarréGillett,1994). These views have many different labels, but here we shall use “the discursive view” as an umbrella term for a broad family of views which primarily regards the mind and psychological processes as cultural and social by nature.

We have thus:

• behaviorism (the dominant view in USpsychology from about 1913[1] to about 1971)
• cognitivism (the dominant view in USpsychology from about 1971 to the present)
• the discursive view (an important, emerging view in psychology from about 1990, but with an earlier origin).

The behavioral view was first formulated in psychology by J. B. Watson (1913),whomade the following programmatic statements:

• psychology is a pure objective, experimental science
• psychology belongs to the natural sciences
• the theoretical goals of psychology are prediction and control of behavior
• in principle, the behaviorist does not acknowledge a distinction between human beings and animals
• psychology can be conducted in terms of stimulus and response
• stimulus can be predicted from behavior, and behavior from stimulus.

Behaviorist principles became increasing difficult to maintain and around 1971 the majority of psychologists replaced themwiththe new paradigm: “cognitivism.”As we shall see below, an alternative view (“ethology”) developed in biology when behaviorism dominated psychology. Ethology also belongs to “the behavioral sciences.”

Cognitivism is based on the metaphor of the human mind as a computer. It isa theoretical approach topsychology that describes mental functions as information processing models and uses quantitative, positivist research methods. The main issues that interest cognitive psychologists are the inner mechanisms of human thought and the processes of knowing (in contrastto the behaviorists’ neglect of inner mental processes). Because cognitivism is not the focus of the present article, we shall not discuss it further (although it has had an influence on IS). It should be said however, that criticism leveled against cognitivism is very harsh. Searle (1992, p. 225), for example, speaks about “the shaky foundations of cognitive science” and says “it is simply false to say that the brain is an information processing device.”

From the point of view of their critics both behaviorism and cognitivism are seen as representing enormous bubbles in the scientific landscape, which have left disappointingly little knowledge to their successors. Harré andGillett (1994, p. vii) wrote: “Behaviorism passed away, leaving only its experimental methodology behind, and even that is kept in being more by institutional pressures than by any scientific merit. The new dawn seemed to many to be heralded by the development of computer-oriented ‘cognitive science,’ but that too proved to be an illusion. The technical sophistication of the programming model was not matched by a coherent theory of the relation between formal computation and real-life human thought.” Because of this criticism many researchers in psychology as well as in information science and other fields (including myself) turned towards alternatives such as “the discursive view.”

The discursive view:an important recent development within psychology and related fields can be labeled “a social turn” (covering a broad family of related views, including “activity theory”). Therefore the social turn in IS should be seen as part of a broader movement in other fields, including psychology. This social turn has many different labels, among others “the second cognitive revolution” and “the discursive turn.”

Human psychologyand functions like perception, thinking, memory and emotion are seen as cultural and social developments. The alternative view,that psychological processes and consciousness are independent phenomena that can be studied as somethingself-reliant, was heldby both Dewey (1910, p. 250) and Vygotsky (1997, pp. 272-3 and 372) as “the psychological fallacy.” (The same fallacy is today widespread in the understanding of, for example, “information needs” in IS[2].)Both researchers found that in order to study the human mind, it is necessary to leave it per se and study the society and the culture in which it functions. Empirical support for this view has also been provided by social anthropology, for example by Jack Goody (1987).

It is beyond the scope of this article to provide more detailed information about theoretical developments in psychology and adjacent fields, so I will finish with a quote about the social nature of human thinking:

“If witcraft is a basic form of thought, then we can expect private thinking to be modelled upon public argument. In consequence, it should possess a dialogic, rather than monologic, character. Thought, then, would not be seen as a process which is inevitably locked within the recesses of the brain and which is only dimly reflected in our words. Instead, the structure of the way we argue reveals the structure of our thoughts. To put the matter in a paradox, which should not be interpreted too literally: Humans do not converse because they have inner thoughts to express, but they have thoughts because they are able to converse” (Billig, 1996, p. 141).

Different “paradigms” are related to different views of knowledge. With some simplification we may say that

• behaviorism is mainly related to empiricism (and to logical positivism)
• cognitivism is mainly related to rationalism
• the discursive view is mainly related to historicism and pragmatism.

Consequently theories of psychology can essentially be classified according to their underlying epistemologies, and books about theoretical issues in psychology can be arranged on the basis of these theories of knowledge, as done, for example, by Russell (2004). The same is the case with IS, where I have often classified views by relating them to their underlying theories of knowledge (cf. Hjørland, 1997).

Terms such as “behavioral sciences” havedifferent meanings:social organization, a label used for a collection of topic areas, e.g. in educational programs and journal names,ora set of assumptions shared by a group of researchers and a particular methodological approach. We may thus indicate the following connections:

Table 1:
Connections between paradigms and groupings of disciplines
“School” or “paradigm” / Grouping of disciplines
Behaviorism (in psychology)
Ethology and human ethology / behavioral ecology(in biology[3]) / The behavioral sciences[4]
Cognitivism / The cognitive sciences[5]
The discursive view[6] / What might be called “discursive studies”

Although these groups of sciences overlap, they are not identical: there are internal connections between a theoretical view and what is seen as adjacent fields. Organizational labels such as “the behavioral sciences” need not, of course, be very closely related to the corresponding “paradigms.” One can work in a field designated by a given label even if one's theoretical commitment is more closelyrelated to another paradigm. On the other hand, it is obvious that there is some connectionbetween the terms one uses and the view to which one subscribes. Terminology is neitherinnocent nor neutral.[7]

My point so far is: Bates (2007) refers in the subtitle of her paper to the behavioral sciences. I see this as an indication of a theoretical view based on or related to “a behavioral view,”although I am placing myself under the discursive label. These different theoretical positions should make it possible to draw different perspectives on IS in general and browsing in particular. Things are, however,somewhatcomplicated because (HarréGillett, 1994, pp. 3-4) “ironically, at about the same time as behaviorism was established in psychology, the study of the biology of animal behavior was undergoing a remarkable and permanent revolution in the hands of Lorenz, Tinbergen, and von Frisch, who abandoned the laboratory for the study of the whole lives of animals in their natural surroundings” (what is termed “ethology” and is based on an “ecological” point of view). This is important because – as we shall see later – a main driver of Bates (2007) seems primarily to be ethological studies(which are also part of “the behavioral sciences” but not subject to the same criticism which has been raised against behaviorism in psychology,although its application to human beings, the field known as “human ethology,” has also been severely criticized for neglecting the importance of culture). Nonetheless, the basic aim of the present paper is to uncover the fundamental assumptions in different traditions, to consider the drawbacks in behavioral views and to put forward an alternative view on browsing based on views related to “the social turn” in both psychology and IS.

Presentation of Bates (2007)

Bates's work (2007) is a conceptual, analytical and theoretical article rather than an empirical article. It considers browsing as one kind of information behavior, along with other kinds, including scanning and berrypicking.[8] It discusses other authors’ definitions and understanding of browsing and suggests a new definition of that phenomenon. Bates also exemplifies what she considers “a prototypical browsing situation”,i.e. looking at magazines at an airport news stand:

“Based on experience, you know that the news stand could be a browsing-rich experience. You walk over and stand close enough to the shelves to read the headlines. You glimpse a section. You see a headline or picture that interests you. You pick up the magazine, i.e., you select it. You read a bit, i.e., you examine it and put it back. You glimpse something out of the corner of your eye. You turn your head and look at that magazine. No, not interesting after all. You now look in the other direction on the shelf. Ah, now that's really interesting! You pick up the magazine and read a little. You think, ‘I'm going to buy this one. I can read it on the plane,’ i.e., you acquire. You then either browse additional magazines or go to the check-out stand to buy your magazine.” (Bates, 2007, italics added).

In this example the italicized words (glimpse, select, examine, acquire) are the elements of typical browsing sessions. Bates also suggested that although her definition is expressed in terms of vision it is possible in principle to extend it to, say, browsing sound clips of a music player and the use of other senses.

After discussing the literature about browsing in IS Bates (2007) turns towards

• psychological literature about visual search and
• psychological and behavioral ecology literature on curiosity and exploratory behavior.[9]

Bates does not ask whether these sources represent different metatheories and what the implications of that would be. In a former paper (2002) she referred to Sandstrom (1994) on “optimal foraging theory” (which has nowbeen critically discussed in IS by Nicolaisen, 2007). I have found this theory inspiring (although it is controversial) because it asks the question: “what is the best form of behavior in particular cases?” If browsing research is tobe fruitful, I believe we have to address this question: what kinds of orienting behavior are the optimal ones in different contexts? We shall return to that question later. Bates’s primary aim is to find support for her understanding of browsing in these behavioral literatures.

In the light of this literature (as well as the literature from IS), Bates (2007) reaches the following eight conclusions:

“

1. Animals that can move (motile as opposed to sessile animals) may use their movement capability to explore in a more or less random manner. This behaviour exposes them to new places and possibilities. Such exposure may lead to new food sources, mates, nesting or hiding places and escape routes from predation. Such exposure may also lead to harm or death. [10]
2. Presumably, the amount and extent of exploratory behaviour exhibited in a given species is the result of the historical trade-off experienced by the species between explorations that led to positive results and explorations that led to deleterious results. (Another, non-conflicting, possibility is that there may be a range of exploratory behaviour within the species as well, with some animals doing more or less exploration. Thus, this variation is the engine for further natural selection and, therefore, evolution of the species' exploratory propensities in one direction or another.)
3. Based on the above, we accept that most animals have a propensity toward exploratory behaviour.
4. In humans, at least, visual search is optimized for efficiency and constrained by brain capacity, in such a way as to require a particular kind of search. Specifically, we take in a scene all at once in a massively parallel glimpse, then select or sample a spot within the glimpsed area to examine more closely, using higher-level capabilities which require much more mental processing space. The glimpse notes basic features such as colour and movement. The higher-level processing at the examination stage engages in such activities as face recognition, reading and object identification.
5. Browsing is a cognitive and behavioural expression of this exploratory behaviour. The in-built motivation for this exploratory behaviour can be called curiosity. Because humans are so strongly reliant on vision, bodily motion often mirrors visual search, in that the second stage of browsing often involves physical movement toward items of interest, which movement, of course, also supports closer visual inspection.
6. Browsing is here considered to have four elements. The first element is essential to our understanding of browsing, the later elements almost always occur as well: 1) glimpse a scene, 2) home in on an element of a scene visually and/or physically (if two or more elements are of interest, they are examined serially, not in parallel), 3) examine item(s) of interest, 4) physically or conceptually acquire or abandon examined item(s). This sequence is repeated indefinitely through further glimpses. Browsing is thus not a smooth scan of a scene.
7. Formally, browsing is defined thus: Browsing is the activity of engaging in a series of glimpses, each of which exposes the browser to objects of potential interest; depending on interest, the browser may or may not examine more closely one or more of the (physical or represented) objects; this examination, depending on interest, may or may not lead the browser to (physically or conceptually) acquire the object.
8. The design of interactive information systems needs to incorporate an awareness of human browsing characteristics. Specifically, browsing for information in such systems should not be limited to the opportunity to scan, but instead enable the searcher to manifest the instinctive tendency to engage in a browsing sequence: to glimpse, then to examine or not something glimpsed, then to keep or not the things examined” (Bates, 2007).

We have now described Bates’s(2007) article. In my opinion it is not behaviorist in a narrow sense. Behavioral ecology is not behaviorist and Bates clearly draws on that. Her conclusions concerning animal behavior seem to be correct and important, although they neglect the problem of how to determine which behavior is optimal in specific situations or contexts. Perhaps her point of view is not just behavioral, because one could say that point 4above relates to cognitive science. In spite of this Bates’s views are clearly different from a social/cultural perspective. There are some areasin which they are clearly more related to behavioral science that to discursive studies:

(1)the search for universal principles in browsing behavior common to both animals and human beings.

(2)the search for biological mechanisms underlying browsing behavior at the expense of epistemological and discursive/rhetorical causes.

(3)principles about browsing are primarily sought in psychology (i.e. in the properties of the organism/the subject) rather than in the surrounding world (although the ecological perspective does that).

(4)the tendency to consider browsing a random exploration rather than a systematic or theory-driven exploration.

I have now tried to establish how Bates's work (2007) is theoretically connected to behavioral sciences and how this may be a limited perspective. This should become clearer when we consider the alternative, social, perspective introduced below.

An alternative view based on the theory of knowledge

Bates (2007) speaks of browsing as a kind of exploratory behavior, whereas I would suggest we should speak of it as a kind oforienting strategy. Unlike Bates,I do not think of browsing as a totally random exploration, and the word “strategy” clearly indicates that. Although there is nothing in Bates’s article that is directly opposed to the view that browsing is a strategic way of acting,the impression one gets from the article is that Bates views it as a random process. In addition,there is no indication how we can find out which kind of orienting strategy is optimal in a given context.