By bidirectional, we mean that, in one direction, it helps the designer to ground design into a psychological theory, and also that, in the reverse direction, the empirical data collected from using the system constitute a feedback for the theory. This link is complex because it may be used to refer to several theoretical approaches. Most psychological theories address actually only a specific facet of learning while an ILE designer must consider learning in its globality and complexity. For instance, an ILE must account for the importance of discovery, for the role of practice and for the effect of coaching, because all of them occur at some stage of learning in the real world. Therefore, an intermediate framework should integrate multiple theories, each relevant for some aspect of reality.
Hare are some examples of links between theories and our design metaphors.
The pyramid and language shift concepts can be articulated with Vygotsky's idea of apprenticeship . We focused on this theory because of it's rather operational form, and because, s ince this theory defines developmental stages, it concerns the macro-structure of Memolab . By macro-structure, we mean the relationship between successive microworlds. Some other theories would be more relevant for the micro-structure, i.e. the interaction among agents inside a microworld. In the eighties, the dominant view in cognitive science was to consider problem solving as the execution of schemata.