The browser's retrieval game

A three‐mode game (procedure), applicable to time‐sharing information retrieval systems, is described in detail and demonstrated by limited experimental results. It is designed to offer the system user direct interaction with the system and a certain browsability through its information file. An association function is required to assign a level of association, based on co‐occurrence frequencies, to every pair of terms in the term vocabulary. The association level of a pair serves as indicator of in‐file presence or absence of the represented concept. The user starts with any single term(s) or term pair(s), “browses” through the available index term vocabulary “aisles” by means of a display console, and finally arrives at the game's objective: Either a query in terms of pair(s) of highly associated terms or the conclusion that the subject of interest is not represented. Formulating a query by coordinating only highly associated terms is expected to produce several advantages. It provides more specificity to query meaning while nevertheless insuring the retrieval of relevant items. It also prevents many false drops otherwise generated by erroneously coordinated index terms. The experimental results lend support to these expectations.