information discovery

Kerne, A., Smith, S.M., Koh, E., Choi, H., Graeber, R., An Experimental Method for Measuring the Emergence of New Ideas in Information Discovery, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (IJHCI), 24 (5) July 2008, 460-477.

The information discovery research area develops and validates theories about what goes on in the mind and body as human beings work and play with information. Human beings engage in information processing with digital systems. This cyborg conjunction experiences a series of states and transformations. The information discovery framework addresses these states and conjunctions by integrating the creative cognition approach with human computer interaction and information seeking. We are particularly interested in how needs, desires, and goals may evolve during the course of a creative process.

We shift the focus in the evaluation of information discovery systems from convergent thinking tasks (those with a single answer) to divergent thinking tasks (those with multiple answers). Our meta-hypothesis is that by understanding how cognition works in the context of interactive information, we can gain insight into how to build more valuable environments.

publications

Kerne, A., Koh, E., Smith, S.M., Choi, H., Graeber, R., Webb., A., Promoting Emergence in Information Discovery by Representing Collections with Composition, Proc ACM Creativity & Cognition, Washington DC, June 2007, 117-126.
Koh, E., Kerne, A., I Keep Collecting: College Students Build and Utilize Collections in Spite of Breakdowns, Proc European Conf on Digital Libraries (ECDL), Sept 2006, Alicante, Spain.
Kerne, A., Smith, S.M., Choi, H., Graeber, R., Caruso, D., Evaluating Navigational Surrogate Formats with Divergent Browsing Tasks, Proc ACM CHI 2005.
Kerne, A., Smith, S.M., The Information Discovery Framework. Proc ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2004, 357-360.


Shah, J.J., Smith, S.M., Vargas-Hernandez, N., Gerkins, D.R., Wulan, M. (2003)
Empirical Studies of Design Ideation: Alignment of Design Experiments with Lab Experiments, Proc DETC 2003: ASME 2003 International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology

Shah, J.J., Smith, S.M., Vargas-Hernandez, N. (2002)
Metrics for Measuring Ideation Effectiveness, Design Studies, 24:2, 111-134.

Dodds, R. A., Ward, T.B., & Smith, S.M. (2003) Review of experimental literature on incubation in problem solving and creativity, in M. A. Runco (Ed.), Creativity research handbook, Vol. 3. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Ward, T.B., Smith, S.M., Finke, R.A. (1999) Creative Cognition, in Handbook of creativity, Sternberg, R.J., ed, Cambridge, U.K. : Cambridge University Press.

Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., Finke, R.A. (1995) Principles, Paradoxes, and Prospects for the Future of Creative Cognition, in Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., Finke, R.A., The Creative Cognition Approach, Cambridge: MIT Press, 327-335.

Smith, S.M.(1994) Getting Into and Out of Mental Ruts: A theory of Fixation, Incubation, and Insight, in Sternberg, R J., Davidson, J., The Nature of Insight, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 121-149.

Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., Schumacher, J.S. (1993) Constraining effects of examples in a creative generation task, Memory & Cognition, 21, 837-845.

Smith, S.M., Blankenship, S.E. (1991) Incubation and the Persistence of Fixation in Problem Solving, Am Journ Psychology, 104, 61-87.