Cognitive Fit in Visualizing Big Data

This dissertation examines the consequences of cognitive fit in visualizing big data. Specifically, it focuses on the interplay between different types of business data analysis tasks and visualization methods, and how the defining characteristics of big data (i.e., volume and variety) moderate the outcomes concerning data analysis performance (i.e., solution time and solution accuracy). A 12-cell repeated-measures laboratory experiment (n=145) using eye trackers is conducted to test the hypotheses. Data analysis performance is observed to improve when the information emphasized by a visualization method matches the specific information requirements for a data analysis task. Such improvements in data analysis performance are further amplified when the visualized information has high volume and variety. This dissertation contributes to the literature in at least three ways. First, it improves our understanding of cognitive fit and how it manifests in analysts’ problem solving behaviors when using visualization tools. This is done by analyzing participants’ eye movement and gaze fixation patterns while they work with different types of data analysis tasks and visualization methods. Based on this analysis, this study proposes an objective method for assessing and measuring cognitive fit. Second, this study maps visualization characteristics to business data analysis task types, and informs the choice of visualization tools among an ever-increasing number of alternatives for supporting the complex problems faced by big data analysts. Third, this dissertation extends the cognitive fit theory to the big data context and highlights the relative importance of cognitive fit in this setting by demonstrating that increases in volume and variety amplify the task performance consequences of cognitive fit. The limitations of the experiment conducted for this dissertation and the future research opportunities they present are discussed. The findings of this dissertation also can inform the development of new visualization tools and techniques based on task and data characteristics

Is the digital media a panacea for the ills of mass media concentration?

Digital platforms facilitate public discourse, but discourage competing views, write Shaila Miranda, Amber Young, and Emre Yetgi

Complacency and Intentionality in IT Use and Continuance

Decision makers’ initial and continued use of information technology has traditionally been viewed as a mindful and intentional behavior. However, when a decision aid makes mostly correct recommendations, its users may become complacent. That is, users may accept recommendations without mindfully considering the recommendations or involvement with the aid. As such, they may be more likely to accept inaccurate recommendations. We draw on dual-processing theory to describe why users might behave in a mindless and complacent rather than mindful manner when using a decision aid. In our experimental investigation, we manipulated the accuracy of the recommendations provided by a decision aid and observe users’ performance on a complex decision task. Using the decision aid, participants completed five task trials. To assess complacency and intentionality, we compared subjective (i.e., self-report) and objective (i.e., gaze data via an eye tracker) use measures. Our analysis and comparison of the subjective and objective responses indicate that, contrary to widespread theorizing, decision aid usage and continuance appear to be less intentional than commonly believed. Further, we found that a decision aid’s users can be vulnerable to complacency even when recommendations are known to be inaccurate. Based on the findings of our study, we offer theoretical and practical implications regarding complacency and intentionality in technology use

The Differential Effects Of Technological Cues On Elaboration

There is an abundance of user reviews available online about anything, ranging from commercial products to professors.According to the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), users can elaborate on the relevant information as long as they havethe motivation and the cognitive ability to do so. However, the extent of information found online can be so overwhelmingthat it may exceed the cognitive capacity of its seeker, and cause an overload. We propose that technological cues can helpusers identify the most relevant and useful information. The hypotheses were tested using 39 students in a study based on aprofessor-review website. Findings suggest that sorting the reviews by their helpfulness interacts with ability in determiningthe participants’ extent of elaboration. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Conflict Asymmetry in Face-to-face and Computer Mediated Teams

Jehn and colleagues (2010) investigated conflict asymmetry (i.e., different perceptions towards conflict) in a face-to-face context from a multilevel perspective and found that both group and individual levels of conflict asymmetry had negative impacts on performance. In this paper, we conducted a conceptual replication of their work to understand how computer-mediation and time may impact previous findings on conflict asymmetry. At the group-level, we observed a three-way interaction suggesting computer-mediation may reduce the negative consequences of conflict asymmetry early in a teams’ lifecycle. At the individual level, we observed a two-way interaction wherein the negative correlation between high task-conflict asymmetry perceptions and satisfaction took time to emerge

Cultural Production of Protest Frames and Tactics: Cybermediaries and the SOPA Movement

On the surface, the recent mobilization of opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) over the internet appears to be yet another cyberactivism success. Yet, the anti-SOPA movement should have been doomed to failure for two reasons. First, the issue was too abstract to mobilize local kinship and friendship groups. Second, because mass media interests were served by the bill, mass media was unmotivated to diffuse the anti-SOPA message. Our analysis of this movement suggests it succeeded because of cybermediaries, internet companies that used their sites to diffuse the anti-SOPA message. They accomplished this through cultural productions of protest frames and tactics – technology-based verbal, graphical, and experiential representations of the SOPA protest frame and technology-based toolkits for use at the cybermediaries’ sites as well as for use at visitors’ sites. Our key contribution lies in identifying the nature and relative impact of these frames and tactics in cyberactivism

Prominence and Interpretation of Online Conflict of Interest Disclosures

Online product reviews are influential sources of information that some companies attempt to manipulate by compensating reviewers for favorable comments. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has mandated disclosure of reviewer compensation to address this potential conflict of interest, but the effect of such disclosures on consumer attitudes is unknown. By extending prominence–interpretation theory, this work reconciles conflicting empirical results by introducing two novel elements of prominence (i.e., proximity and embedding) and demonstrating the effect disclosures have on reviewer credibility through two experiments (N = 750). The effects of social consensus and prior warnings on how consumers interpret disclosures are also studied. Using a general population sample (N = 346), Experiment 1 demonstrated that proximity to review increased disclosure prominence while embedding the disclosure in the review decreased disclosure prominence. More prominent disclosures reduced reviewer credibility, but less prominent disclosures had no effect. Using a student sample (N = 404), Experiment 2 demonstrated that disclosure interpretation is affected by prior warnings about conflicts of interest and the consensus of other reviews. When there was disagreement between reviews and prior warnings were provided, disclosures reduced reviewer credibility, but when there was a consensus of positive reviews or no consensus information was provided, disclosures had no effect. Our studies show that both prominence and interpretation are important to consider in understanding the effects of disclosure statements. However, variables associated with prominence produced the most robust results. The theoretical implications of these results and the practical implications for consumers, companies, and policymakers are discussed

Toward Designing a Business Analytics Model Curriculum for Undergraduate Business Students

Business analytics (BA) has become a source of competitive advantages for companies. While there is a massive amount of data available to companies, only a small portion of it can actually be analyzed. Lack of employees with the right analytical skills is a primary reason for that. As the need for professionals with BA skills has grown, universities have launched dozens of BA programs to supply those professionals. However, there is no BA model curriculum for undergraduate programs, which makes it difficult for employers to make any expectations in regard to skills acquired when a student graduates from these programs. As such, the main objective of this research is to propose a model curriculum for an undergraduate BA major. Using a knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs) framework, we aim to find what KSAs should be taught to undergraduate students and what courses should be included in a BA curriculum

Are We Feeling What We Are Seeing? A Trait Mindfulness and Eye-Tracking Study

While mindfulness has been studied in various settings and proven to be beneficial in stress reduction, attention enhancement, etc., few studies have been conducted in the context of mindfulness in technology-use settings, and so far, data collection relies only on subjective self-reporting. This research aims to generate guidelines that facilitate more mindful, healthier use of predictions for trait mindfulness. We identify mindfulness as a key path toward emotional well-being and propose to capture mindfulness using objective, neurophysiological measures including Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), eye-tracking, and facial expression analysis as well as subjective self-reported measures. Our study aims to contribute to the literature by developing and validating an objective way to measure trait mindfulness regarding emotions

Are Social Media Emancipatory or Hegemonic? Societal Effects of Mass Media Digitization in the Case of the SOPA Discourse

Mass media digitization is an unfolding phenomenon, posing novel societal opportunities and challenges that researchers are beginning to note. We build on and extend MIS research on process digitization and digital versus traditional communication media to study how and to what extent social media—one form of digital mass media—are emancipatory (i.e., permitting wide-spread participation in public discourse and surfacing of diverse perspectives) versus hegemonic (i.e., contributing to ideological control by a few). While a pressing concern to activists and scholars, systematic study of this issue has been elusive, owing partially to the complexity of the emancipation and hegemony concepts. Using a case study approach, we iteratively engaged with data on the discourse surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and source literature to identify six facets of interpretive media packages (i.e., competing social constructions of an issue) as measurable constructs pertinent to emancipation and hegemony. These facets included three structural constraints (on authorship, citation, and influence) and three content restrictions (on frames, signatures, and emotion). We investigated propositions regarding effects of social versus traditional media and lean versus rich social media on these interpretive media package facets by comparing the SOPA discourse across two lean traditional and social media (newspapers and Twitter) and two rich traditional and social media (television and YouTube). Our findings paradoxically revealed social media to be emancipatory with regard to structural constraints, but hegemonic with regard to an important content restriction (i.e., frames). Lean social media mitigated structural advantages and exacerbated content problems. These findings suggest that, as with traditional media, some inevitable evils accompany the societal benefits of social media and that mass media is having a detrimental effect on public discourse. We offer practical steps by which private and public institutions may counter this effect, theoretical implications for wider consideration of the six interpretive media package facets proposed here, and encouragement to MIS researchers to increase their efforts to compare different digitized processes so that a more comprehensive theory of the effects of different forms of digitized processes can be developed