Session 5: On Privacy, Trust, and Ethics
Human Information Interaction and the Cognitive Predicting
Theory of Trust
Lauren Fell
Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
Brisbane, Australia
l3.fell@qut.edu.au
Peter Bruza
Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
Brisbane, Australia
p.bruza@qut.edu.au
ABSTRACT
This perspectives paper proposes a conceptualization of trust that
does not require a predefined feature space, but rather is dynam-
ically formed at the point of information interaction through a
cognitive predicting mechanism.
Trust is a significant issue in the current information context due
to fake news, echo chambers, filter bubbles, and confirmation biases
which can result in a disconnect between human trust expectations
and information trustworthiness, making it difficult to establish a
feature space within which trust might be modeled.
In response to this, we present our Cognitive Predicting Theory
of Trust (CPTT) which allows trust to be modeled without the re-
quirement of a predefined feature space. Drawn from the cognitive
theory of Predictive Processing, CPTT describes how people form
trust judgments based on cognitive predictions within a system of
information interactions. We outline how this CPTT view of trust
might be modeled using complex systems and provide examples
showing how curation of the information interaction environment
can affect the trust associated with the system.
We conclude by proposing that our perspective opens up two
avenues for exploration in Computer Human Information Interac-
tion and Retrieval: (1) the need for alternative models, and (2) the
value of curating the information environment.
CCS CONCEPTS
• Human-centered computing → Interaction design theory,
concepts and paradigms; • Information systems → Users and
interactive retrieval; • Applied computing → Psychology.
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CHIIR ’20, March 14–18, 2020, Vancouver, BC, Canada
© 2020 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6892-6/20/03. . . $15.00
https://doi.org/10.1145/3343413.3377981
145
CHIIR ’20, March 14–18, 2020, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Andrew Gibson
Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
Brisbane, Australia
andrew.gibson@qut.edu.au
Pamela Hoyte
Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
Brisbane, Australia
pamela.hoyte@qut.edu.au
KEYWORDS
trust, cognitive predicting theory of trust, information interaction,
predictive processing, curating information, fake news, cognitive
bias
ACM Reference Format:
Lauren Fell, Andrew Gibson, Peter Bruza, and Pamela Hoyte. 2020. Human
Information Interaction and the Cognitive Predicting Theory of Trust. In
2020 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR
’20), March 14–18, 2020, Vancouver, BC, Canada. ACM, New York, NY, USA,
8 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3343413.3377981
1 INTRODUCTION
Echo chambers, filter bubbles, alternative facts, and fake news are
terms characterizing an information environment where trust is
increasingly difficult to establish. Yet in arguably the most informa-
tion saturated time of human history, trust has never been more
important. In times long gone, human trust expectations were sat-
isfied with the trustworthiness of the information and its source.
This nexus between the trusting person and the trustworthy infor-
mation is now fractured, resulting in significant social issues like
increased polarization in socio-political discourse and widespread
misinformation on well established health practices. Many infor-
mation seekers are ill equipped to navigate this environment, and
calls are frequently made for search and social media companies to
take action, with regulators litigating companies when they fail to
maintain public trust [22].
However, despite the resources being levied against the problem,
there is little evidence of progress in stemming the erosion of trust,
and few fresh ideas on how to move forward. Frequently, atten-
tion is turned to the quality of information and how features like
authenticity might allow the discrimination between trustworthy
and untrustworthy information. Yet with the rise of deep fake tech-
nology [7], the volume of information available, and the velocity
with which new information is created, it is an open question as
to whether specific information features can be associated reliably
with levels of trustworthiness.
The dependence on human judgment to discern trustworthy
information also highlights the importance of the reliability of the
general public in making these judgments. Educational institutions
are regularly called on to improve the ‘data literacy’ of our children
to address a perceived deficit in this area [3]. Implicit in this burden
Session 5: On Privacy, Trust, and Ethics
is that problems can be solved through better education. However,
the very heuristics that help people make judgments, depend on
cognitive factors that are manipulated by the same information
interaction environments in which the judgments are made. So-
cial media companies exploit human factors (such as emotions and
cognitive biases) to create conduits for advertisers, and build busi-
nesses on minimizing the friction between information giver and
receiver, largely without concern for the nature of that information,
and rarely without consideration of the effect that it may have on
trust. In this context the relationship between reality and trust is
distorted at best and completely destroyed in the worse case, with
information consumers living in bubbles of information that re-
semble their own desired reality, echoing their own perspectives
and views, irrespective of how far they are from being beneficial to
society as a whole. This scenario is a trust illusion for the individual
and a trust breakdown for society. Given this context, it is pertinent
to examine existing conceptualizations of trust and their fitness for
application in this volatile, dynamic environment.
1.1 Trust between people
Most conceptualizations of trust have centered around people, both
individuals and groups. Trust has been viewed as a significant
issue for businesses in relation to their customers and employees,
for politics in terms of persuading constituents, and for people
engaging in relational tasks that require the trust of others. This
has resulted in definitions of trust such as “an expectancy held by
an individual or a group that the word, promise, verbal or written
statement of another individual or group can be relied upon” [30, p
651]; or “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of
another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a
particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability
to monitor or control that other party” [21, p 712].
Popular definitions such as these, along with the theoretical
frameworks that rely on them, treat trust as a relationship be-
tween statically defined parties with specific attributes. This static
relationship-centric understanding of trust is problematic when
considering human interaction with information. Do we consider
the relationship between the person and the information? If so,
can characteristics of this relationship be seen as similar to those
relationships between people? If not, how are we to understand
trust in the context of information interactions.
1.2 Trust in information
Although theories of trust have largely been constructed in a world
where relationships predominantly had a physical manifestation,
they continue to be drawn upon in an environment where many
relationships are virtual and mediated by information interaction
rather than physically situated dialogue. While once a consumer’s
relationship with a company was based on physical engagement
with that company such as talking to a sales assistant on the shop
floor, it is now just as common for there to be no physical encounter
at all.
Yet, despite these changes in society, views on trust have re-
mained firmly rooted in relationships, where trustworthiness of
information is conceptualized as the trustworthiness of the other
party. For example, an article in the New York Times is seen as
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representing the media organization and the author from that or-
ganization. From this traditional perspective, trusting the article
is not so much trusting the information itself, but more trusting
the source of that information based on a relationship between the
reader and the author/organization. As such, trustworthiness of
the information is something of a proxy for trustworthiness of one
or other of the parties.
In the following section, we will show that in the information
interaction context this kind of trust is founded on two pillars:
people who are trusting, and information which is trustworthy.
However, at the same time we recognize that traditional views on
trust are limited with respect to information in many contempo-
rary situations, and that frequently information is dynamic and
plays an active role in information interactions, shaping the trust
relationship between interacting parties. We return to this issue
later in section 3 as a motivation for our new perspective on trust
in relation to information interactions.
2 TWO PILLARS OF TRUST
As described above, dominant theories on trust center around rela-
tionships between people and groups of people. In these there are
always two necessary components to the trust relationship: one
party needs to trust the other, and the other needs to behave in
a trustworthy manner. These theories have also tended to dom-
inate thinking with respect to information interactions. That is,
information is seen as a proxy for either or both sides of the trust
relationship. This results in information either conveying a party’s
propensity to trust, or representing the extent to which a party
may be trusted. Like trust in the physical sphere, the information
sphere imports the significance of truth, vulnerability, expectations,
consistency, and other common trust concepts.
Similarly, trust within human information interactions rests on
two pillars: (1) the characteristics of the person doing the trusting,
such as their personal expectations with respect to the information
and their propensity to trust; and (2) the features of the information
itself, such as its truthfulness, authenticity, reliability, and integrity
of its source. In this section we examine these two pillars in de-
tail, before showing how they contribute to the way trust can be
modeled in information interactions.
2.1 Trusting people
There are situations where the barriers between trust and distrust
are clear, for example, we may completely trust our parents as
children, and fully distrust a snake we encounter on a hike. On the
other hand, we may only partially trust that friend who sometimes
lets us down, that dog who only once bit us, or that company who
sells us products that only sometimes malfunction.
Definitions of trust often involve the expectations a person has
of a certain outcome [9, 21, 26, 31]. This could be the outcome of
a friend keeping a secret, a dog not attacking a child, or a piece
of news being truthful and accurate. Wherever expectations are
being made, a person must draw on a complex range of memories,
assumptions, perceptions, and heuristics in an attempt to predict an
outcome with a certain amount of confidence. The more uncertainty
present in the environment, the less confident a person can be about
Session 5: On Privacy, Trust, and Ethics
their predictions, as they inevitably have less relevant information
to draw on in order to make them.
The effect of uncertainty on human decision-making has been
well documented in cognition, neuroscience and behavioral eco-
nomics. For example, the bounded rationality theory [32] posits
that humans have a limited capacity for considering outcomes and
probabilities necessary to make completely accurate predictions
and decisions about the world, so must make the best decisions
based on the information and cognitive resources available. In a
similar vein, dual process theories of reasoning [10] assume two
separate processes: (1) fast, intuitive, mostly automatic processes
which tend to operate when uncertainty is high, time is short and
cognitive resources are few, and (2) slow, considered, controlled
processes in the opposite cases.
Slow, considered, controlled processes aim to maximize the util-
ity of information and transacts decisions in order to achieve this.
That is, the quality of the information, the reputation of the source
etc. are carefully and logically evaluated. Such rational decision
making has been well studied in ‘top-down’ models of cognition.
However, there is an alternative ‘bottom-up view’ in which hu-
mans employ heuristics, short-cuts and cognitive biases because
of bounded rationality. Heuristic decision making and cognitive
biases tend to be triggered in situations where there is ‘too much
information’, ‘not enough meaning’, ‘the need to act fast’. Such
heuristics and associated biases often have their roots in satisficing,
rather than ‘getting it right’, which is cognitively more demanding.
The number of cognitive biases identified continues to increase,
and they range from remembering only emotionally salient infor-
mation, to finding patterns in pattern-less data, to weighting risk
and reward differently, and relying on stereotypes. Whilst these
are generally believed to be side effects of a mostly functional and
adaptive system that preserves our cognitive resourcing and allows
for fast decision making, they contribute to the unpredictability of
how people may judge trust.
One may think that knowing the heuristics that appear to govern
human decision-making under uncertainty, as well as certain fea-
tures of a piece of information, one might be in a position to reliably
predict a person’s decisions with regard to trust, for instance. This
simply is not the case, as, aside from some cardinal examples used
to demonstrate specific biases, it is often difficult to know which
combination of biases may be used for any given situation. This is
because of the many individual differences present in the various
styles of decision-making employed. For example, Kahneman and
Frederick [15] describe heuristics in terms of ‘attribute substitution’
- in place of a difficult decision where information, probabilities or
reasoning are difficult to access, we substitute a simpler decision,
which may be based on a heuristic such as a prototype or peripheral
information in order to make a decision. Although this explana-
tion seems to bring many cognitive biases and heuristics under
one umbrella, it does not make human decision-making any more
predictable - in many cases it is impossible to know which simpler
decision a person might substitute. In short, it is challenging to
model how human beings transact decisions of trust.
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2.2 Trustworthy information
The second pillar of trust is the extent to which the information
can be seen to be trustworthy. It is reasonable to assume that trust
is strongly related to qualities of the information in question. For
example Briggs, Simpson and de Angeli [4] found three factors
strongly correlated with the formation of trust: source credibility,
personalization, and predictability. These factors can be influenced
through modifications to the information itself. That is, the infor-
mation could be modified to improve its credibility, to be more
suitable to the searcher, and more inline with expectations. In re-
lated work, Harris, Sillence and Briggs [14], found that four factors
were significant in a model of general web trust, but that in respect
to health web sites, two factors (personalization and credibility)
were mediated through impartiality and information quality. Re-
gardless of how identified factors play a role in trust formation,
they are nevertheless features of the information.
However, in a 2013 study on beliefs and biases in health related
search [35], White found that users were more likely to select an-
swers based on positivity of the answer and in confirmation of
existing ideas, rather than on the truthfulness of the information.
Assuming that searchers are more likely to trust responses that they
select, this work raises an important question in relation to trust-
worthy information: To what extent is trustworthiness based on
features of the information itself, and to what extent is it a function
of the person making the trust judgment? This question highlights
the inter-relationship between human factors and information fea-
tures, and it is this inter-relationship and how it is modeled that
we examine further in the following sections.
3 FEATURE SPACE VIEW OF TRUST
Imagine you would want to build a search engine that was effective
in not only retrieving information that was topically related to
a query but trustworthy as well. In fact, the need to incorporate
trust and provenance in information retrieval was presaged almost
two decades ago [19]. Recent reflections from the Third Strategic
Workshop on Information Retrieval in Lorne (SWIRL) suggest not
much has changed in the intervening period, “Current evaluation
metrics and methods do not adequately capture notions of users’
satisfaction, confidence, and trust or the quality of the outcomes or
decisions made on the search process" [1].
As there is a human interacting with the information, it is natural
to view the search system in terms of the two pillars described above
- the human and the information.
One pillar is the human judging the trustworthiness of the in-
formation. As mentioned in the previous section, decisions of trust
involve assessments of factors such as the reputation of the source
and the subjective assessment of the validity of the information.
The human pillar is challenging. Given that the human is a
heuristic decision maker subject to cognitive bias it does not suf-
fice to assume the human is a rational decision maker. However,
this doesn’t necessarily preclude the development of cognitively
motivated user models which could, in principle, be embedded into
technology. The field of cognitive science has recently proposed
Bayesian models that are sensitive to bounded rationality, and con-
sequently account for both cognitive biases and rational decision
making within a single formal framework [18]. In such a model,
Session 5: On Privacy, Trust, and Ethics
we could assume that the function f (A1, . . . , Am ) is a high level
abstraction of the user’s decision making of trustworthiness where
A1, . . . Am represent cognitive features that bear on decisions of
trust.
The other pillar is the information which can also be abstractly
characterized by means of the function д(B 1, . . . Bn ). This function
involves features Bi that represent data-driven proxies of concep-
tual aspects of trust. A famous example is PageRank, which in its
original conception was a data-driven feature that computed the ‘im-
portance’ of a web page based on their back links, which “provide a
kind of peer review" [23]. The better the ‘peer review’, the more im-
portant the information and hence the higher the probability of its
trustworthiness. Much of the research in systems IR has proceeded
in this way: Features are identified that promote retrieval effective-
ness. Such features are usually instantiated numerically, e.g., by
corpus-based statistics, click logs etc. The function д(B 1, . . . , Bn )
represents a high level abstraction of information features that are
optimized by the system in order to retrieve trustworthy informa-
tion (this function can be equated with the ‘laboratory approach’
in IR).
Our trust retrieval system can now be conceptualized as an inter-
active retrieval system [16]. A user enters a query into the search
system and interacts with it in the usual ways, e.g., the user reformu-
lates their query based on what information is retrieved. While this
is going on, heuristic decision making and cognitive biases are in-
fluencing the user’s interactions. All the while, the system attempts
to retrieve trustworthy information. In other words, we have a com-
posite system where trust is reduced to a computation based on the
corresponding composite function: f (A1, . . . , Am ) ⊙ д(B 1, . . . , Bn ).
More specifically, trust would be computed from some vector of
user and system features where the weights would be iteratively
updated according to the interactions between the user and the
system.
A significant consequence of this line of thinking is that trust is
always defined within a given space of features. Once the feature
space has been defined, decisions of trust are reduced to features
with corresponding weights and the given function that computes
with them. The point is that trust is therefore dependent on a
predefined feature space. The question is whether an adequate
notion of trust can be expressed in this way.
4 THE COGNITIVE PREDICTING THEORY OF
TRUST
In contrast to the feature space view, we provide an alternate view
of trust accounting for a more holistic understanding of both the
human and information pillars, and does not rely on a pre-defined
feature space. To do so, we draw on the predictive processing theory
of mind [5] (also related are active inference and predictive coding
[25]) which describes all of cognition as continuous prediction and
error minimisation.
4.1 Prediction and Cognition
Predictive processing is thought to play an essential role in all levels
of the cortical hierarchy. At the lowest levels, information does not
simply enter the cognitive system through a bottom-up process of
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feature extraction and eventual interpretation. Instead, the process-
ing of information is moderated by the cognitive system’s active
predictions based on expectations about the world [2, 11]. One sug-
gested example of this is the blind spot in our visual system. This
refers to a section of the retina that is lacking in receptor cells due
to the exit of nerve fibers through the back of the eye. Rather than
perceiving a black spot in our visual field, our brains instead ac-
tively fill this space with what it expects to see based on activation
coming from the surrounding visual receptors [27]. In other words,
our perception of the visual field (in this case, the part of it that
falls within our ‘blind spot’) is mediated by top-down predictions
in ways which we are often not consciously aware of. An example
at a higher level is in the way we perceive bodily motion, moder-
ated by what we expect based on our own muscle movements. The
predictive mechanism underlying this not only avoids the world
appearing to shake around us as our eyes saccade, but also allows
us to distinguish between movements generated by ourselves and
external forces at a higher level in the cortical hierarchy [37].
4.2 Trust and Prediction
As predicting is a fundamental mechanism involved in thought
and action, it clearly is also significant with regards to trust. We
(humans) like predictability; we find safety in it. It is the security
of the comfort zone, the safe feeling of home, and the contentment
found in the familiar. In other words, a predictable environment
fosters our subjective feeling of trust.
Risk judgments are the inverse - they deal with the likelihood
that a safety prediction is false - which in turn threatens the feeling
of trust. This can be seen in the lack of trust that is fostered when
a piece of technology fails to perform consistently. This can also
play a role in the trust perception of virtual characters, as is seen in
the famous uncanny valley effect (negative reactions to a character,
avatar or robot that bears a very close but ‘not quite right’ resem-
blance to a human) [8, 20], which has been shown to be moderated
by the predictive processing system [33].
The predicting of an outcome, current or future, is a fundamen-
tally interactive exercise. Based on the predictive processing theory
in cognition [5], we propose that trust arises out of a dynamic
exchange between expectation and environment that uses a cog-
nitive mechanism that is fundamentally predictive. In this view,
expectation is informed by a range of prior beliefs, current infor-
mation, values, affect and biases. This view is particularly useful
in situations where prior features of the information space may be
difficult or impossible to determine, such as in complex information
environments. Our observation of the importance of predictability
as central to trust does not deny the importance of other factors.
Rather, it is an attempt to strip down the concept to its fundamental
element. This factor in particular is important in understanding
the interactive component of trust, as it involves a dynamic level
of trust based on the inseparable components of environment and
expectation.
Hence, we define trust as a dynamic predictive interaction
between expectation and environment, where expectation is
mediated by prior beliefs, biases, affect, and available infor-
mation.
Session 5: On Privacy, Trust, and Ethics
This view of a predictive mechanism as central to the notion
of trust is evidenced in much of the trust literature. For example,
PytlikZillig & Kimbrough’s [26] meta-review on conceptualizations
and definitions of trust revealed common themes, with the ma-
jority including the words expectation and uncertainty in their
definitions. Further, Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt & Camerer [31] iden-
tify “confident expectations and a willingness to be vulnerable [as]
critical components" (p 394) of all definitions of trust they reviewed.
The word ‘expectation’ implies prediction to a certain level of
confidence in the behavior of the object of trust. In fact, Rempel,
Holmes & Zanna [28] consider the predictability component of trust
to be the first stage of trust in interpersonal interactions. Rather
than consider predictability as simply one component, however, we
consider trust to hinge on this cognitive process of prediction.
When we encounter a new situation, the rules of probability
or heuristics or any of the other means by which we may make
general predictions about the world around us can be considered as
standards informing our expectations, from which a judgment of
trust emerges. We internalize these standards, or rather, these stan-
dards arise dynamically as we interact and learn from our changing
environment. However, regardless of how much consensus there is
between these standards, or how ‘correct’ they may be, they still
form the basis through which we make predictions. For example,
a general prediction about tomorrow might be that the sun will
rise in the morning. One might think that this is an objective truth,
however, if we think about it in terms of a subjective experience,
one may not know the probability that some catastrophic event will
befall the sun sometime during the night, and thus, the standard
that is set for the sun coming up tomorrow is not based on that
objective probability. Instead, the subjective expectation is based
on the fact that the sun has been witnessed to rise every day up
until this point and this has formed a standard (or rule) that the
sun will definitely rise tomorrow.
Likewise, consider the situation where you might encounter a
person in a dark alley, who appears to be dangerous, looking at you
menacingly. You might compare this to the set of rules you have es-
tablished based on all encounters with other people across your life,
and find that this person does not meet the general prediction you
have for people, namely, to not look at you menacingly or appear
dangerous, so you might then find that person untrustworthy.
One might ask at this point: how can trust be applied as simply a
probability judgment in cases where we may see someone or some-
thing as predictably ‘untrustworthy’? If someone or something
predictably acts in a way that produces harmful or unsatisfactory
outcomes, can they not be considered to be predictably ‘untrustwor-
thy’, and therefore, under our definition, ‘trustworthy’ to act in a
way that produces harm? To answer this, we must place ‘prediction’
in the wider context of not just the object of prediction, but on the
expectations we place on our environment. At the point of interac-
tion with information or an agent in a system, what we consider is
the expectations that are formed through this interaction, and how
well the information or agent is perceived to be predictable based
on those expectations.
Expanding on the previous example, you may have a friend that
is consistently deceptive. Whenever you interact with them in the
context where they have an opportunity to be deceptive, at the
point at which you invest your time in listening to what they have
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to say, you form an expectation that what they are about to tell
you should be truthful. Your expectation could be due to a range of
factors such as social norms (people should generally tell the truth),
internal motivations (you really want to believe them this time),
affect (you’re in a positive mood, and your cynicism is low), or
an unknowable combination of cognitive biases. For example, you
might have an overgeneralized sense of the honesty of your friend
based on some extraneous aspect that places them in a positive light
(the halo effect), or what they are saying in the present interaction
may agree with your world view (confirmation bias), or it may be
that something about the interaction reminds you of someone else
whom you deem to be a particularly honest person and you anchor
your prediction of the honesty based on this other person. The latter
is an example of something that can arise out of an interaction with
no way of anticipating its presence or effect on the decision in
advance or in absence of the interaction.
We contend that predictions are made based on numerous ex-
pectations about the world and objects within it, which cannot
be anticipated prior to interaction. In the example above, an ob-
jective observer of your relationship might see that this friend is
predictably deceptive, and that a decision based purely on an ability
to predict might be a poor means of informing whether or not you
should trust what this friend says. However, an objective measure of
truthfulness is just one aspect of this friend that contributes to your
decision to trust them. In addition, your friend is just one aspect of
your environment at the point of this interaction that contributes
to the trust that emerges out of the whole situation. Rather than
considering the features of a human system and the features of
an information system as static and separate, we instead consider
them to be holistically and dynamically related to the interaction
context. Humans make predictions about the context as a whole,
which inextricably affects their assessments of each individual part,
such as the features of the information system, or the system itself.
According to the predictive processing view [5], the predictive
mechanism permeates multiple levels of cognition, from perception
to complex decisions, and is thus able to account for the many
factors that play a role in trust.
4.3 Modeling Trust in CPTT
We suggest that complex systems models provide a basis for mod-
eling trust in a way that accords with CPTT. The system is an
information interaction system where components of the system
(human factors and information features) are interacting with each
other within an extended cognitive space. At various points in time
these components can form networks which correspond to trust
judgments (see figure 1). A network of one set of components may
correspond to a strong prediction of trust whereas another network
may correspond to a prediction of mistrust. A lack of networked
components may indicate ambiguity or inability to form a trust
judgment.
In this complex system model, characteristics are known about
information aspects of the system, but specific values of individ-
ual features may not be known. Similarly, an understanding of
human factors at the system level is possible, but details on indi-
vidual human factors remains unpredictable. Therefore the two
Session 5: On Privacy, Trust, and Ethics
I the light of information interactions from the user.
H I
H which is best introduced with an analogy. An artist sometimes
H I I
H
I We argue that trust is an experience in an extended cognition
H system that can be analogously curated. To illustrate this point,
H
I I
Figure 1: Modeling CPTT. Components of a cognitive sys-
tem (human factors and information features) form net-
works corresponding to trust judgments. Changing the sys-
tem boundaries affects trust judgment formation.
pillars remain in the model, but are considered holistically, with-
out a requirement that a feature space must be mapped, so the
model embraces the dynamism and ambiguity associated individual
components of the system. Individual components of the system
can be given characteristics that dynamically change in interaction
with other components. For example a component representing a
human factor of a particular emotion increase in emotional valence
in response to a component representing an information feature of
strong opinion. The same human factor component may decrease
its tendency to network with other components when emotional
valence is high.
Whereas the feature space view obtains a trust measure based on
continuous updating of weights across features that are predefined,
the complex systems model provides a mechanism for influencing
trust through curating the environment and effectively changing
the boundary of the system (see figure 1). For example, when the
system comprises networks that correspond strongly to trust, a
boundary change might erode this trust corresponding to a reduc-
tion in the ability of the components to form networks. In contrast,
if an environment is curated that allows the optimum opportunity
for these networks to form, then such an environment might be
seen as facilitating trust.
5 CURATING TRUST
A feature based model of trust spans information based features re-
lated to human cognition. It is important to note that a pre-existing
feature space is required. Much hinges on getting this ‘right enough’
to be effective. Big challenges are involved in identifying a suitable
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set of features and finding appropriate means to weight them. An
additional challenge is developing methods to update weights in
Another possibility is presented by the holistic approach of CPTT,
designs a work in order to engender a certain experience for the
viewer. To this end, one of the important aspects of curating artwork
is to mount the work in such a way that it enhances the possibility
of the desired experience being actualized in the human viewer.
Note that in this setting, the viewer, artwork and its mounting form
an extended cognition system that need not be predicated on a
pre-existing feature space.
in the following sections we consider three information interac-
tion examples: (1) Google’s use of their knowledge panel, (2) Face-
book’s response to live streaming of terrorist video material, and (3)
Cambridge Analytica’s approach to influencing political decision-
making.
5.1 Google knowledge panel
The volume and inconsistency of health information on the internet
has been reported as being two of the most significant barriers to
effectively interacting with health information online [17]. These
barriers when coupled with cognitive biases that result in a ten-
dency to accept favorable results [35] can result in searchers trusting
information which for their own health should not be trusted.
Information and human factors could be addressed separately
by educating people and controlling information, however, a dif-
ferent approach would be to curate the information environment
by utilizing CPTT. Using this perspective, objective features of the
information do not necessarily exist, and therefore cannot be in-
dependently assessed by Google. Likewise, human factors such as
cognitive biases do not exist independently of the interaction, and
interaction implicitly involves the predictive processing mechanism.
A solution therefore could be to curate the interaction space rather
than the independent combination of the two pillars of information
and user.
Google has adopted an approach which resembles information
curation [12]. Using knowledge panels, Google enhances the infor-
mation interactions with the search system by ‘mounting’ infor-
mation from expertly determined trusted sources at the top of the
results page. Users hold certain expectations of the general layout
of a results page, and base predictions for what they see on these
expectations. By playing into these predictions, an experience of
trust is promoted in the extended cognition system.
5.2 Facebook live
Facebook’s news post on “Protecting Facebook Live from abuse”
[29] can be seen as an attempt to respond to community calls for
the company to step up as Curator and to establish an environment
which reduces the likelihood of racist and violent content going
viral. Their response followed two months after the live streaming
on its platform of a gunman’s massacre of people worshiping in
two New Zealand mosques.
Session 5: On Privacy, Trust, and Ethics
However, Facebook was also simultaneously involved in con-
tinuing to curate an information interaction environment which
favours the spread of this kind of information. One commentator
remarked that “The act dovetailed grimly with the business model
of major social media platforms (Christchurch, mosque shootings,
2019) which were not able or willing to stop the shooter’s material
spreading online.”[24]
We argue that Facebook operates on a model where trust has
implicitly been cultivated through predictability. Suggested content
algorithms and structure of the friend/follow list and news feed
promotes predictability. A list of friends on Facebook would tend to
consist of people with whom a user perceives some similarity. The
robust Similarity Attraction effect [6] in interpersonal interaction
shows that people tend to surround themselves with others who
share similar attributes such as opinions, attitudes and interests.
This similarity is therefore likely to foster some level of homogene-
ity in a network (i.e. creating a filter bubble), which increases the
predictability of information coming through the social platforms
feed and thus, according to CPTT, reinforces the perception of trust.
This effect is already being exploited to promote products through
social recommendations [34]. In addition, algorithms are employed
which present material (including advertising) based on past user
behavior, narrowing diversity, and primarily reflecting the users’
own interests and attitudes. Therefore, the predictability and trust
cultivated in the feed is extended to third party advertisements
presented in a space where friend-created content is ordinarily ex-
pected. These examples demonstrate an environment that Facebook
has curated, where an optimized level of predictability in the plat-
form’s environment fosters trust, increasing the potential success
of both continued engagement with the platform as well as other
business goals, whether or not this benefits its users or society as a
whole.
For Facebook to curate an environment which prevents the prop-
agation of content such as the live footage of the Christchurch
mosque shooting, they would need to curate the information envi-
ronment toward a different experience than the current, revealing
a friction between Facebook’s current business model and what
may be considered acceptable content moderation. A tension exists
between censorship (which may erode the predictability and trust
in the platform) and free flow of information (which may impact
societal trust). We suggest that CPTT might indicate a way forward
in the form of adjusting the predictability of certain factors within
the information environment towards an agreed social good. Solv-
ing these ethical dilemmas is beyond the scope of this paper, but
we suggest our CPTT model provides a basis on which questions
on this issue might be addressed in future work.
5.3 Cambridge Analytica
While the Cambridge Analytica scandal [36] was mostly (and rightly)
focused on the misuse of Facebook users’ personal information,
here we suggest that the Company’s analytics allowed for political
influence in a manner that was essentially the curation of an in-
formation experience in order to achieve a particular desired trust
outcome: trust in one politician and/or mistrust of another.
Polarized political views effectively prey on the confirmation
bias of those people whose views are located at the poles such that
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CHIIR ’20, March 14–18, 2020, Vancouver, BC, Canada
they make trust judgments based on that particular polar view.
It also promotes dialogue with others of the same view (i.e. echo
chambers), and rejects those with differing views (i.e. filter bubbles).
These phenomena are strongly associated with the predictive nature
of trust as the affected person predicts that information will be
trustworthy based on their political stance and are rewarded with
an almost zero error result, receiving their view echoed back to
them.
In this example, the extended cognition system comprises an
individual and the information environment offered by Facebook,
and so information interactions were not confined to purely the
individual nor the information presented to them, but were influ-
enced by the network effect of the platform, effectively amplifying
the interactions on which trust judgments are made.
What is striking is how Cambridge Analytica’s work allowed for
curation an information environment to maximize the possibility
of certain experiences for groups of individuals. For example, in
relation to the US presidential election, curating the information
environment of Democratic voters in such a way as to create a false
sense of trust that the election was all but won, thereby facilitating
a behavioral response where individuals did not feel compelled
to vote. In contrast, the information environment of Republican
voters was curated to foster an experience of anger which was
amplified by the echo chamber (also a curated experience) causing
greater numbers to vote than if that experience of anger was not
present. In both cases, small amounts of information available at the
individual level (like personality questionnaire answers) were used
to obtain highly accurate system level information about groups
of individuals, which in turn allowed for the curation of targeted
information environments designed to affect individual experiences
and ultimately behavior.
6 CONCLUSION
In the current information saturated environment of polarized opin-
ion and high quality faking of images, video and text, trust has
become a highly significant topic that is related to arguably all in-
formation interactions. The character of trust also makes it difficult
to be adequately catered for with the core technologies that un-
derpin modern information retrieval systems. The world’s largest
search and social media companies have found that they need to
reach beyond the dominant technological solutions in order to build
trust with their users.
Traditionally, approaches to modeling trust have focused on
forming a pre-defined feature space between the two pillars of hu-
man factors and information features, in which feature weightings
are interactively updated. However, this approach is untenable in
contexts where it is not practically feasible to form the feature
space.
In this paper we have suggested that alternative models of trust
are required that do not rest on the interactive updating of a pre-
defined feature space. We suggest one such alternative can be found
in our Cognitive Predicting Theory of Trust (CPTT) and a corre-
sponding complex systems model.
We believe that our perspective opens up several new areas of
exploration for human information interaction. Firstly, we believe
Session 5: On Privacy, Trust, and Ethics
that there is a need for alternative models that can operate in con-
texts where pre-defined features are not accessible or where feature
space formation is not feasible. Secondly, we suggest future avenues
in the areas of neuroscience, cognition, and social psychology in
exploring how major trust theories within these fields might relate
to CPTT. Third, we note a benefit of CPTT is its foundations in
neuroscience. There has been a recognition of the value of neuro-
science in the human information interaction space in recent years
[13] and CPTT may help direct further research in this area. Finally,
we propose that it would profit the field to undertake further re-
search in curation of information environments, taking advantage
of CPTT in order to design curated, trusting information interac-
tion experiences for users. Specifically, investigations may focus on
determining what curation of the information environment might
look like in terms of information interaction and the implications
for search and retrieval. It is our hope that this paper will help
provoke discussion and debate on these areas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by the Asian Office of Aerospace
Research and Development (AOARD) grant: FA2386-17-1-4016
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