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Peter Ingwersen* & Kalervo Järvelin** Department of Information Studies

The Sense of Information: Understanding the cognitive conditional information concept in relation to information acquisition. Peter Ingwersen* & Kalervo Järvelin** Department of Information Studies *Royal School of LIS – Denmark & **Tampere University - Finland

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Peter Ingwersen* & Kalervo Järvelin** Department of Information Studies

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  1. The Sense of Information:Understanding the cognitive conditional information concept in relation to information acquisition Peter Ingwersen* & Kalervo Järvelin** Department of Information Studies *Royal School of LIS – Denmark & **Tampere University - Finland pi@db.dk -kalervo.jarvelin@uta.fi

  2. Agenda • Information acquisition & IS&R • Information acquisition in context • The cognitive information conception • Generalization & Consequences • Alternative information conceptions • Context & information acquisition • Acquisition from sensory data • Scientific discovery • Conclusions Peter Ingwersen

  3. Information acquisition & IS&R • Outcome of information acquisition is paramount to further intellectual, emotional and/or physical activities in • Daily-life situations • Scientific discovery and development • Information Seeking & Retrieval (IS&R) are important activities in information acquisition processes Peter Ingwersen

  4. Information acquisition in context • Human information acquisition from any kind of source involves: • Communication between Sender & Recipient • Messages in a Channel, and • A degree of shared context between S & R • IS&R requires intentionality on both sides • Information acquisition from sensory data is a special case of intentionality … Peter Ingwersen

  5. Information conception for LIS & information acquisition • An information conception relevant to information acquisition from • Intentional signs (information objects) • Un-intentional signals (from nature) – and • Ought to be associated with all the components of communication Peter Ingwersen

  6. Condition 1: Information being something, which is the result of a transformation of generator(s)’ knowledge structures by intentionality, model of recipients’ states and in the form of signs Condition 2: and being something, which when perceived, affects and transforms the recipient’s state of knowledge The conditional cognitive information conception - 1992 Peter Ingwersen

  7. The cognitive communication system Peter Ingwersen

  8. The cognitive information conception – consequences: • According to Searle (Austin) speech act stresses the intent of the act: • Understanding the sender’s intentionality is essential to capture the meaning of message • In man-machine interaction or man-sensory data interaction: • ONLY WHEN the RECIPIENT is HUMANmay the message turn into information by transforming cognitive/emotional structures of that person Peter Ingwersen

  9. The cognitive information conception – consequences 2: • Information does not have to be novel or true to the recipient • Information may verify the already known • As in repeated scientific experiments … adding to the state of certainty • Falsification signifies a radical change of cognitive state Peter Ingwersen

  10. The cognitive information concept – related to: • Wersig’s understandings (!971/73 – ) • Belkins structured information concept (1978) • Brookes Information Equation (1980) • Buckland’s information matrix (1990): • … as Thing (condition 1 – after ‘cognitive free fall’) • … as Process (perception and effect) – and • … as Knowledge (the transformation result) Peter Ingwersen

  11. Associated to Condition 1, like: Salton: information equals (text) contents & has meaning; hence weighting of keys is relevant for IR (Zipf) Associated to Condition 2, like: Wersig: reduction of uncertainty; problematic situation in a social context; information gives meaning or sense. Alternative information conceptions Associated with the communication channel: Shannon: No meaning or context; information equals signs/signals Peter Ingwersen

  12. More general conceptions • Losee (1997): • Information is the result of a process – regardless whether actors are intentional or not (a kind of ‘universal effector’) • Cognitive concept a special case • Dretske (1981): information systems contain information (like ‘potential information’ in our concept), which may give meaning (sense) to recipient: • meaning goes beyond information Peter Ingwersen

  13. Context & information acquisition • How much and which kind of context is required to be shared between sender and recipient for information acquisition? • How does social context and individual cognitive models (of the world) reflect on acquisition from un-intentional sensory data? Peter Ingwersen

  14. Shared context & situations • The more context shared, and similarity of situations A & B. the higher probability that intended information becomes transferred • Minimum shared context: to make sense of message to recipient (perception & effect) • Necessary context may not be present at any given point of time • Has to be negotiated over time (learning/interaction Peter Ingwersen

  15. Social context/domain vs. individual cognitive structure • IF it is believed that socio-cultural and organizational contexts – and their domain-dependent structures – determine the act of becoming informed … • THEN: Cognitive individual models reflect the social environment, implying that … • Development, alterations and progress of domains/theories would have hard times. WE DO NOT BELIEVE in CONTEXTUAL DETERMINISM Peter Ingwersen

  16. Social context/domain vs. individual cognitive structure 2 • From a cognitive holistic view individual actors possess relative autonomy: they are influenced by socio-cultural … contexts, & their historic context (experiences) • In this framework, and via social interaction with other actors, individuals can contribute to change of a scientific domain or professional strategies; indeed paradigms Peter Ingwersen

  17. Social context/domain vs. individual cognitive structure 3 • This signifies a combined top-down and bottom-up perspective on information transfer and acquisition; • We call it: • The Principle of Complementary Social and Cognitive Influence • The individual actor serve as the determining factor, acting in context(s) Peter Ingwersen

  18. Acquisition of information from sensory data • Information is basically a construct by association and interpretation by the recipient mind of the perceived message. • In IS&R messages are commonly intentional • How does intentionality then appear in un-intentional signals/sensory data from nature? • By the phenomenon that the recipient simultaneously acts as a sender, by: • Projecting his/her perspective/idea/hypothesis on the incoming signals (from nature) Peter Ingwersen

  19. Sensory data becoming information – by projection • The perspective/idea = intentionality becomes the context shared between the same sender and recipient: • The recipient actor (say a scientist) superimposes a specific way of making sense (observing) and interpretation of the incoming signals (applying some methodology): Peter Ingwersen

  20. Sensory data becoming information – by projection 2 • Condition 1 of the cognitive information concept is fulfilled: signals become intentional signs that concur with the assumed expectations of the scholarly peers, later to review the work; • Naturally, the perspective/idea/hypothesis/theory/ methodology may indeed be ‘wrong’ or insufficient – and the outcome of the interpretations starting to contradict (what is perceived) as reality or other actors’ views. Peter Ingwersen

  21. Daily-life and scientific information acquisition • In daily-life, information acquisition from sensory data ( the manipulation of signals) has no rules, and may lead to ‘interesting’ views of the world (the Earth is flat) • In scientific inquiries there are conventionsvarying from discipline to discipline – but developed by logics to ensure consistency (belief) between reality and (within) theory/interpretations Peter Ingwersen

  22. Illustration of situation(From: The Turn..By Ingwersen & Järvelin, Springer, 2005. ) Peter Ingwersen

  23. Consequences - conclusions • Both conditions of the cognitive information conceptions are fulfilled: • Same data set may provide: • Different interpretations and • Different information constructs – depending on the pre-suppositions of the actors (in contexts) Peter Ingwersen

  24. Consequences – conclusions 2 • May lead to verification of results obtained by others, to falsification, or to inter-subjectivism or ‘schools’ (in certain academic disciplines) • May indeed lead to social constructivism and scientific relativism – depending on use of the scientific conventions of inquiry and sense of truth and logic • We have shown that the original cognitive information conception for LIS by Ingwersen (1992) can be generalized to cover also information transfer and acquisition from non-intentional sensory data Peter Ingwersen

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