"Who are you?"
Identifying Young Users from a Single Search Query
Benjamin Bettencourt (Boise State University)
Assoumer Redempta Manzi Muneza (Boise State University)
Michael Green (Boise State University)
Samantha Anguiano (Boise State University)
Jerry Alan Fails (Boise State University)
Casey Kennington (Boise State University)
Katherine Landau Wright (Boise State University)
Maria Soledad Pera (TU Delft - Web Information Systems)
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Abstract
As an initial step towards enabling the adaptation of (popular, and widely used) web search environments so that they can better serve children and ease their path towards information discovery, we introduce Recognizing Young Searchers (RYSe). RYSe leverages lexical, syntactical, spelling/punctuation, and vocabulary features that align with the Concrete Operational stage of development (originally identified by Jean Piaget) in an attempt to identify users that are in this stage. The concrete operational stage is commonly associated with children ages 7-11. Findings emerging from our initial empirical exploration using single queries formulated by children and sample queries from adults showcase the feasibility of relying on different cognitive traits inferred from the short text of a single query to distinguish those that are formulated by younger searchers.