Using a Cognitive Model to Provide Instruction for a Dynamic Task

Using a Cognitive Model to Provide Instruction for a Dynamic Task Jungaa Moon (jungaam@andrew.cmu.edu) Department of Psychology Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA Dan Bothell (db30@andrew.cmu.edu) Department of Psychology Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA John R. Anderson (ja+@cmu.edu) Department of Psychology Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA Abstract The current study used the Space Fortress game (Donchin, 1989) to study the effects of training and instruction in acquisition of complex skills. The game requires flexible coordination of perceptual, cognitive and motor components in a dynamically changing environment. We examined whether effective instruction can be developed for such a task in the same way that instruction is developed for academic tasks. Instruction was developed for certain aspects of the game based on a set of explicit procedural rules in an ACT-R model that plays the game. Participants who were given these instructions were significantly better at handling those aspects of the game that the instructions targeted. The results indicate that it is possible to perform a task analysis of a dynamic task, develop explicit instructions from the analysis, and improve target skills. The results further provide implications for designing training and instructional systems for dynamic skill acquisition. Keywords: skill acquisition; Space Fortress game; ACT-R cognitive architecture. Introduction There has been a considerable history of taking cognitive models for the performance of various academic tasks and building successful instructional programs based on them (Anderson, Corbett, Koedinger, & Pelletier, 1995; Ritter, Anderson, Koedinger, & Corbett, 2007). Much of this work has used computer-based instructional systems where instruction is potentially available after each step of the task. The evidence is sparser for similar success in non-academic, time-pressured tasks. One challenge in providing instructions in such tasks is that processing instruction often interferes performing the task. In a study by Fu and his colleagues (Fu, Bothell, Douglass, Haimson, Sohn, & Anderson, 2006), participants were provided with real-time auditory instructions on an Anti-Air Warfare Coordinator (AAWC – see also Zachary, Cannon-Bowers, Bilazarian, Krecker, Lardieri, & Burns, 1999) task, based on a cognitive model of the task. This resulted in better decisions but slower performance and so no net improvement. It was speculated that this was because of interference in simultaneously processing instruction and performing the task. In this research we investigated whether instruction, based on a cognitive model, but given prior to the performance of a task, would improve performance of the task. We chose to pursue this issue within the context of the Space Fortress game, a computer-based video game. The Space Fortress game (Donchin, 1989) was developed for the learning strategy program initiated by DARPA to investigate the effectiveness of various learning strategies in complex tasks. The underlying assumption of the program was that there are learning strategies that make practice on complex tasks more efficient. Since then the game has been used in a number of skill acquisition studies to compare the effects of various training and instructional strategies on improving performance, minimizing performance decrements under dual-task conditions or facilitating the transfer of skills to a novel task (Fabiani, Buckley, Gratton, Coles, & Donchin, 1989; Frederiksen & White, 1989; Gopher, Weil, & Bareket, 1994; Ioerger, Sims, Volz, Workman, & Shebilske, 2003; Mane, Adams, & Donchin, 1989; Newell, Carlton, Fisher, & Rutter, 1989; Whetzel, Arthur, & Volz, 2008). We have developed a cognitive model capable of performing the game and closely matching human performance (Bothell, 2010) in a modern version of the Space Fortress game developed by Destefano (2010). Perhaps because of a change from joystick navigation to key-based navigation common in modern video games, it turns out that the navigation strategy adopted by experts and incorporated in our model (as well as a model by Destefano, 2010) is different than that the optimal strategy reported by Frederiksen and White (1989). We will explore the effectiveness of off-line instruction based on our cognitive model of this navigation strategy. The Space Fortress Game The main goal of the Space Fortress game (Figure 1) is to maximize the total scores by navigating a ship to destroy a fortress multiple times and protecting the ownship from the fortress and mines. The player navigates the ship in the