IX Lab and UT iSchool had a good presence at 2026 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR) between March 22-26 in Seattle.
On the first day of the conference three doctoral students from iSchool took part in the doctoral consortium (DC): Klara (Zhitong) Guan, Jiaxin An, Yujin Choi. These were 3 out 7 students participating in DC, plus I was one of the student mentors and so, yes, iSchool was very prominently featured in DC.
The first two full paper presentations at the CHIIR conference this year were from the IX Lab!
The first paper was co-authored by doctoral student Dan Zhang, Bullard post doctoral fellow Gavindya Jayawardena, and Associate Professor Jacek Gwizdka.
It was presented by Dan Zhang, and it was her first conference presentation and a successful one!
The second paper was co-authored by Bullard post doctoral fellow Gavindya Jayawardena, doctoral student Li Shi and Associate Professor Jacek Gwizdka. It was successfully presented by Gavindya Jayawardena.
The paper describes an eye-tracking experiment investigating how working memory capacity and task complexity influence cognitive load during web searches. We compared fact-checking and decision-making tasks, using pupillometry and facial expression analysis to track physiological and emotional shifts in real-time. The results indicate that complex decision-making significantly increases mental strain, particularly for individuals with lower memory capacity, who also experience higher levels of confusion and surprise. Conversely, participants with higher memory capacity managed mental demands more efficiently and maintained positive emotional engagement. Ultimately, the study advocates for the development of adaptive digital systems that can dynamically adjust to a user’s unique cognitive and emotional states.
Test-of-Time Award for Prof. Soo Young Reih
CHIR 2016 paper co-authored by Prof. Soo Young Reih received the first test-of-time award granted by CHIIR:
Collins-Thompson, K., Rieh, S. Y., Haynes, C. C., & Syed, R. (2016). Assessing Learning Outcomes in Web Search: A Comparison of Tasks and Query Strategies. Proceedings of the 2016 ACM on Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval, CHIIR ’16, 163–172. https://doi.org/10.1145/2854946.2854972
At the same time short paper by doctoral student Yujin Choi and Prof. Soo Young Rieh received the best short paper award: Choi, Y., & Rieh, S. Y. (2026). Interest-Driven Search in AI-Mediated Information Environments: An Audio Diary Study. Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval, CHIIR ’26, 453–457. https://doi.org/10.1145/3786304.3787