A Subjective Logic Formalisation of the Principle of Polyrepresentation for Information Needs
This work provides a formal framework for researchers in information retrieval to better model and reason about user contexts, though it is incremental as it builds on existing theoretical principles without empirical validation.
The paper tackles the lack of a mathematical formalization for the principle of Polyrepresentation in interactive information retrieval by proposing a formal model using Subjective Logic to represent information needs as beliefs with uncertainty, and it discusses combinations of these beliefs for various retrieval scenarios.
Interactive Information Retrieval refers to the branch of Information Retrieval that considers the retrieval process with respect to a wide range of contexts, which may affect the user's information seeking experience. The identification and representation of such contexts has been the object of the principle of Polyrepresentation, a theoretical framework for reasoning about different representations arising from interactive information retrieval in a given context. Although the principle of Polyrepresentation has received attention from many researchers, not much empirical work has been done based on it. One reason may be that it has not yet been formalised mathematically. In this paper we propose an up-to-date and exible mathematical formalisation of the principle of Polyrepresentation for information needs. Specifically, we apply Subjective Logic to model different representations of information needs as beliefs marked by degrees of uncertainty. We combine such beliefs using different logical operators, and we discuss these combinations with respect to different retrieval scenarios and situations. A formal model is introduced and discussed, with illustrative applications to the modelling of information needs.