How Cognitive Models Can Inform the Design of Instructions

Instructions represented as lists of steps lead to inflexible and brittle behavior in cognitive models, suggesting that list-style instructions lead to poor learning in people as well. On the basis of this assumption we designed an alternative operatorstyle instruction that produces better learning in models. In an experiment and model of interacting with a simulated Flight Management System, a system that is notoriously hard to learn on the basis of list-style instructions, we show that alternative instructions produce significantly better and more robust learning.