Loading...
Automated Bot Detection Using Bayesian Latent Class Models in Online Surveys
Roman, Zachary Joseph Brandt, Holger Miller, Jason Michael
Roman, Zachary Joseph
Brandt, Holger
Miller, Jason Michael
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
Behavioral scientists have become increasingly reliant on online survey platforms such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk (Mturk). These platforms have many advantages, for example it provides ease of access to difficult to sample populations, a large pool of participants, and an easy to use implementation. A major drawback is the existence of bots that are used to complete online surveys for financial gain. These bots contaminate data and need to be identified in order to draw valid conclusions from data obtained with these platforms. In this article, we will provide a Bayesian latent class joint modeling approach that can be routinely applied to identify bots and simultaneously estimate a model of interest. This method can be used to separate the bots' response patterns from real human responses that were provided in line with the item content. The model has the advantage that it is very flexible and is based on plausible assumptions that are met in most empirical settings. We will provide a simulation study that investigates the performance of the model under several relevant scenarios including sample size, proportion of bots, and model complexity. We will show that ignoring bots will lead to severe parameter bias whereas the Bayesian latent class model results in unbiased estimates and thus controls this source of bias. We will illustrate the model and its capabilities with data from an empirical political ideation survey with known bots. We will discuss the implications of the findings with regard to future data collection via online platforms.
Description
Date
2022-04-27
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Frontiers Media
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Latent class analysis, Mixture models, Structural equation models, MTurk, Bots
Citation
Roman ZJ, Brandt H and Miller JM (2022) Automated Bot Detection Using Bayesian Latent Class Models in Online Surveys. Front. Psychol. 13:789223. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.789223