非目的的情報探索に関する生理心理学的アプローチ

‐最適刺激水準理論に基づく情報デザイン‐

抄録

The opportunity of purposeless information searching, such as browsing purposeful information, is increasing. The promotion of interest to products and services by utilizing these opportunities is also focused. Thus, a new concept for information design that is not “efficiency of information searching” but “continuousness of information searching” is expected. It has been suggested that searching for information without a defined purpose or use is based on intrinsic motivation. And according to the optimal stimulation level theory, there is a U-shaped relationship between intrinsic motivation and the stimulation level. On the basis of this theory, we hypothesized that the continuousness of information is enhanced in an environment where the user can enjoy information searching at an optimal stimulation level. In this study, we attempted to specify the requirements for the information design method on the basis of the above mentioned hypothesis, and verify the effectiveness of the method. In the experiment, participants tried information browsing. Following an analysis of the relationship between the stimulation level and participants’ physiological and psychological responses, although it is just a guide, the following has been clarified. When the stimulation level of the most familiar information was defined as 0 and that of the least familiar information was defined as 1, the optimal stimulation level existed around at 0.3 to 0.4. Moreover, the stimulation level of 0.15 to 0.8 was also effective for enhancing the participants’ intrinsic motivation for information searching. In addition, it was found that their intrinsic motivation increased when the gap in the stimulation level between the previous information piece and the next one was 0 to 0.15 or −0.5 to −0.35. Furthermore, we conducted an experiment to verify if the information browsing continued for longer periods of time when the above findings were applied to a browsing site, and confirmed the effectiveness.