Cursor momentum for fascination measurement

We present a very different cause of search engine user behaviors—fascination. It is generally identified as the initial effect of a product attribute on users’ interest and purchase intentions. Considering the fact that in most cases the cursor is driven directly by a hand to move via a mouse (or touchpad), we use the cursor movement as the critical feature to analyze the personal reaction against the fascinating search results. This paper provides a deep insight into the goal-directed cursor movement that occurs within a remarkably short period of time (<30 milliseconds), which is the interval between a user’s click-through and decision-making behaviors. Instead of the fundamentals, we focus on revealing the characteristics of the split-second cursor movement. Our empirical findings showed that a user may push or pull the mouse with a slightly greater strength when fascinated by a search result. As a result, the cursor slides toward the search result with an increased momentum. We model the momentum through a combination of translational and angular kinetic energy calculations. Based on Fitts’ law, we implement goal-directed cursor movement identification. Supported by the momentum, together with other physical features, we built different fascination-based search result reranking systems. Our experiments showed that goal-directed cursor momentum is an effective feature in detecting fascination. In particular, they show feasibility in both the personalized and cross-media cases. In addition, we detail the advantages and disadvantages of both click-through rate and cursor momentum for re-ranking search results.