Quantifying Cognitive Factors in Online Social Behavior Research Topic Area: Socio-Cognitive Networks

Abstract

The objective of the proposed work is to measure the impact of cognitive factors on individual choices and the collective outcomes of those choices. This research will focus on understanding how people make decisions to allocate attention and the role that cognitive factors play in these decisions. Of specific focus will be the biases important in online interactions, such as position bias, social influence bias, and affect biases. The project will explore how cognitive biases interact with social network structure to give rise to the observed patterns of social influence and the spread of information online. Using controlled online experiments and empirical data analysis, the project will measure how cognitive heuristics and biases affect individual decisions to allocate attention among available items. In addition to quantifying how cognitive factors affect behavior, this work will develop strategies for leveraging them to steer collective attention towards desired items or messages in order to foster their widespread adoption. Finally, the proposed work will unify the cognitive and social factors through computational models of individual and collective social behavior.

Document Details

Document Type
DoD Grant Award
Publication Date
Jan 12, 2017
Source ID
W911NF1510142

Entities

People

  • Kristina Lerman

Organizations

  • Army Contracting Command
  • United States Army
  • University of Southern California

Tags

Readers

  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.