Message Perception within Context-Aware Recommender Systems

Thus far implementation of Context Aware Recommender Systems have primarily focused on what to recommend by deriving results from patterns of behavior and environment to determine optimum product selection for recommendation. Our experiment demonstrates that a purchaser’s affective state also has an effect on their perception of information presented via a mobile device. We posit that the ‘how’ and ‘when’ to recommend are important considerations that have not been fully addressed when considering the display of recommendations. Together with user behaviors associated with purchasing traits, e.g. impulse buying, we explore the information processing styles of mental imagery and analytical processing; risk acceptance; involved user effort; and marketing techniques of positive and negative appeals. Results show that these different methods of presenting information to the purchaser will be successful in obtaining a positive user perception within different affective states. Together an understanding of these information presentation and processing techniques is used to build a representation of a purchaser’s perception that could be used in m-commerce systems.