The Moderator Effect of Working Memory and Emotion on the Relationship between Information Overload and Online Health Information Quality Judgment

Abstract

I aim to investigate how information overload (IO) affects participants' judgment of online health information quality. The moderator effects of working memory capacity and elicited emotion on the relationship between IO and online health information quality judgment will also be studied. I will also investigate how individuals with different working memory (WM) capacities perceive IO. Hence, I propose to conduct a lab-based, two-factor (task topics and levels of IO) within-subject experiment to investigate the research questions. Eye-tracking data, retrospective think-aloud (RTA), search outcomes, and perceived information overload will be collected and analyzed. The results of the experiment will help to better understand how health consumers make quality judgment under different levels of IO, working memory capacities, and elicited emotions.