Self-monitoring during exploration of an interactive device

Abstract We report four experiments in which we manipulated the conditions under which subjects explored an unfamiliar interactive device without the benefit of assistance or instruction. Our aim was to increase the amount of knowledge subjects acquired about the device and to influence how efficient they were at later applying the operational procedures they discovered. The interventions were to interrupt subjects' exploration at regular intervals and ask them to verbally report on what they had learned so far (Experiment I) or to state their future intention (Experiment II). Both manipulations yielded significant benefits, when compared to subjects who explored the same device without such interruptions. In Experiment III there were four conditions in which interrupted subjects reported on topics of different levels of relevance to the task. This experiment showed that it is the relevance of the verbalised content as opposed to an “incubation” period which affects performance in a beneficial manner. Finally we investigated whether it was necessary to employ external prompts to obtain these effects (Experiment IV). It was found that subjects were in fact able to effectively interrupt their work in order to review their progress.

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