  User reviews have become an important source for recommending and explaining
products or services. Particularly, providing explanations based on user
reviews may improve users' perception of a recommender system (RS). However,
little is known about how review-based explanations can be effectively and
efficiently presented to users of RS. We investigate the potential of
interactive explanations in review-based RS in the domain of hotels, and
propose an explanation scheme inspired by dialog models and formal argument
structures. Additionally, we also address the combined effect of interactivity
and different presentation styles (i.e. using only text, a bar chart or a
table), as well as the influence that different user characteristics might have
on users' perception of the system and its explanations. To such effect, we
implemented a review-based RS using a matrix factorization explanatory method,
and conducted a user study. Our results show that providing more interactive
explanations in review-based RS has a significant positive influence on the
perception of explanation quality, effectiveness and trust in the system by
users, and that user characteristics such as rational decision-making style and
social awareness also have a significant influence on this perception.
