Compensis, PaulPaulCompensis0000-0003-3415-48442026-05-052026-05-052026https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/114968Conversational agents and related systems enable more flexible and elaborate information seeking and retrieval than earlier search strategies, such as conventional web search engines. However, these systems sometimes produce responses that are excessively long or complex, not always aligning with the needs of their human interaction partners and potentially leading to information overload (IO). IO is associated with negative affect in humans and is known to reduce information effectiveness, thereby limiting the usability of information-seeking systems. In this paper, I briefly discuss psychological effects of IO and present the results of a survey examining self-reported experiences of IO when using conversational agents for information seeking in a German sample (n = 50). The paper concludes with suggestions for how conversational agents could be adapted and modified to become more sensitive to humans’ affective experiences, with the goal of mitigating the effects of IO.engconversational information seekinginformation overloadhumanagent interactionconversational agentafectconferenceobjecturn:nbn:de:bvb:473-irb-114968x