Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
music recommender systems
exploration
taste-broadening serendipity
listening diversity
user interest
Let Me Introduce You: Stimulating Taste-Broadening Serendipity Through Song Introductions
🤖 AI Summary
Current music recommendation systems often fail to stimulate users’ interest in songs beyond their established preferences, thereby limiting listening diversity. This work proposes an approach centered on immersive and information-rich song introductions to foster “preference-expanding serendipity,” emphasizing two key mechanisms: narrative immersion and cognitive elaboration. Findings from user studies demonstrate that such introductions significantly enhance users’ interest in non-preferred music, with narrative immersion serving as a primary driver of engagement. Cognitive elaboration, while more readily elicited, effectively boosts acceptance of unfamiliar songs. The study offers both actionable design strategies and theoretical grounding for enhancing listening diversity on streaming platforms.
📝 Abstract
Research on how people experience music emphasizes the importance of exploration and diversity in listening. However, music recommender systems struggle with facilitating exploration. Even when music recommender systems are able to recommend something valuable to users that is outside their typical preferences, it still remains difficult to spark their interest. This paper presents a user study examining the efficacy of immersive and informative introductions in stimulating interest in songs that are beyond one's usual preferences, an experience called Taste-Broadening Serendipity. We uncover two important mechanisms behind the effect of introductions: transportation and cognitive elaboration. Our findings indicate that transportation (i.e., being absorbed into a narrative world) is the strongest predictor of Taste-Broadening Serendipity, while cognitive elaboration (i.e., learning something new about the artist or social context in which the music emerged) has a weaker effect but is easier to stimulate. We propose that song introductions can play an important role in facilitating exploration and increasing diversity of listening on music streaming platforms.
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Taste-Broadening Serendipity
song introductions
transportation
cognitive elaboration
music recommender systems
🔎 Similar Papers
No similar papers found.
