Information Foraging—A Model for Exploration Breadth and Depth

The optimal path choice theory from biology implies that foragers should evaluate all sites before selecting something feasible when site relocation costs are low and there are few sites to explore. In internet information foraging, although the cost of moving to another site is negligible, the number of relevant sites can be large and exploration costs vary. We examine human internet information foraging behaviors and propose a model relating them to established cognitive measures.