Show simple item record

dc.contributor.authorPogacar, Frances A.
dc.contributor.authorGhenai, Amira
dc.contributor.authorSmucker, Mark
dc.contributor.authorClarke, Charles L. A.
dc.date.accessioned2017-10-02 13:59:51 (GMT)
dc.date.available2017-10-02 13:59:51 (GMT)
dc.date.issued2017-10-01
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3121050.3121074
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/12521
dc.description© Frances A. Pogacar, Amira Ghenai, Mark D. Smucker, and Charles L. A. Clarke, 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in the Proceedings of the 3rd ACM International Conference on the Theory of Information Retrieval (ICTIR'17), ACM. , https://doi.org/10.1145/10.1145/3121050.3121074en
dc.description.abstractPeople regularly use web search engines to investigate the efficacy of medical treatments. Search results can contain documents that present incorrect information that contradicts current established medical understanding on whether a treatment is helpful or not for a health issue. If people are influenced by the incorrect information found in search results, they can make harmful decisions about the appropriate treatment. To determine the extent to which people can be influenced by search engine results, we conducted a controlled laboratory study that biased search results towards correct or incorrect information for 10 different medical treatments. We found that search engine results can significantly influence people both positively and negatively. Importantly, study participants made more incorrect decisions when they interacted with search results biased towards incorrect information than when they had no interaction with search results at all. For search domains such as health information, search engine designers and researchers must recognize that not all non-relevant information is the same. Some non-relevant information is incorrect and potentially harmful when people use it to make decisions that may negatively impact their lives.en
dc.description.sponsorshipNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada||CRDPJ 468812-14, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada||RGPIN-2014-03642, Google, Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, University of Waterlooen
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherACMen
dc.subjectHealth Searchen
dc.subjectUser Studyen
dc.subjectMisinformationen
dc.subjectHarmful Effectsen
dc.titleThe Positive and Negative Influence of Search Results on People's Decisions about the Efficacy of Medical Treatmentsen
dc.typeConference Paperen
dcterms.bibliographicCitationFrances A. Pogacar, Amira Ghenai, Mark D. Smucker, and Charles L. A. Clarke. 2017. The Positive and Negative Influence of Search Results on People’s Decisions about the E fficacy of Medical Treatments. In Proceedings of ICTIR ’17, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 1-4, 2017, 8 pages. DOI: 10.1145/3121050.3121074en
uws.contributor.affiliation1Faculty of Engineeringen
uws.contributor.affiliation1Faculty of Mathematicsen
uws.contributor.affiliation2David R. Cheriton School of Computer Scienceen
uws.contributor.affiliation2Management Sciencesen
uws.typeOfResourceTexten
uws.peerReviewStatusRevieweden
uws.scholarLevelFacultyen
uws.scholarLevelGraduateen
uws.scholarLevelOtheren


Files in this item

Thumbnail

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record


UWSpace

University of Waterloo Library
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
519 888 4883

All items in UWSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved.

DSpace software

Service outages