Instructionless Learning about a Complex Device: The Paradigm and Observations

In order to study the mechanisms that underlie “intuitive” scientific reasoning, verbal protocols were collected from seven computer-naive college students asked to “figure out” a Big Trak programmable toy, without a user's guide or other assistance. We call this paradigm Instructionless Learning . The present paper presents a detailed account of how people learn about a complex device in an instructionless-learning context. Subjects' behavior is divided into an orientation phase and a systematic phase . We attend most carefully to the systematic phase. Learners form hypotheses about various aspects of the Big Trak: the syntax of interaction, the semantics of operators, and the device model —which includes objects such as memories, switches, etc. Subjects attempt to confirm hypotheses from which predictions can be made, to refine hypotheses that do not immediately yield predictions, and to verify their total knowledge of the device. Hypotheses are formulated from observation. If an initial hypothesis is incorrect, it will yield incorrect predictions in interactions. When such failures occur, learners change their theory to account for the currently perceived behavior of the device. These changes are often based upon little evidence and may even be contradicted by available information. Thus, the new hypotheses may also be incorrect, and lead to further errors and changes.