Individual differences in knowledge network navigation

Abstract

With the rapid accumulation of online information, efficient web navigation has grown vital yet challenging. To create an easily navigable cyberspace catering to diverse demographics, understanding how people navigate differently is paramount. While previous research has unveiled individual differences in spatial navigation, such differences in knowledge space navigation remain sparse. To bridge this gap, we conducted an online experiment where participants played a navigation game on Wikipedia and completed personal information questionnaires. Our analysis shows that age negatively affects knowledge space navigation performance, while multilingualism enhances it. Under time pressure, participants’ performance improves across trials and males outperform females, an effect not observed in games without time pressure. In our experiment, successful route-finding is usually not related to abilities of innovative exploration of routes. Our results underline the importance of age, multilingualism and time constraint in the knowledge space navigation.