Cognitive Activity during Web Search

Searching on the Web or Net-surfing is a part of everyday life for many people, but little is known about the brain activity during Web searching. Such knowledge is essential for better understanding of the cognitive demands imposed by the search system and search tasks. The current study contributes to this understanding by constructing brain networks from EEG data using normalized transfer entropy (NTE) during three Web search task stages: query formulation, viewing of a search result list and reading each individual content page. This study further contributes to the connectivity analysis of the constructed brain networks, since it is an advanced quantitative technique which enables the exploration of brain function by distinct and varied brain areas. By using this approach, we identified that the cognitive activities during the three stages of Web searching are different, with various brain areas becoming more active during the three Web search task stages. Of note, query formulation generated higher interaction between cortical regions than viewing a result list or reading a content page. These findings will have implications for the improvement of Web search engines and search interfaces.