John R. Anderson
Publications by John R. Anderson (bibliography)
Anderson, John R. (2005): Human Symbol Manipulation Within an Integrated Cognitive Architecture. In Cognitive Science, 29 (3) pp. 313-341.
Jr., Philip I. Pavlik and Anderson, John R. (2005): Practice and Forgetting Effects on Vocabulary Memory: An Activation-Based Model of the Spacing Effect. In Cognitive Science, 29 (4) pp. 559-586.
Budiu, Raluca and Anderson, John R. (2004): Interpretation-based processing: a unified theory of semantic sentence comprehension. In Cognitive Science, 28 (1) pp. 1-44.
Anderson, John R. (2002): Spanning seven orders of magnitude: a challenge for cognitive modeling. In Cognitive Science, 26 (1) pp. 85-112.
Corbett, Albert T. and Anderson, John R. (2001): Locus of Feedback Control in Computer-Based Tutoring: Impact on Learning Rate, Achievement and Attitudes. In: Beaudouin-Lafon, Michel and Jacob, Robert J. K. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2001 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference March 31 - April 5, 2001, Seattle, Washington, USA. pp. 245-252.
“Five public school teachers were observed during two self-study sessions where they learned to use Visual AgenTalk (VAT). The first session emphasized the basic visual programming skills, while the second introduced ways to reuse existing simulations. Two versions of the reuse tutorial were developed, one offering a concrete example world for reuse, and the second an abstract world. During their learning and reuse sessions, the teachers thought out loud as they worked, enabling a detailed analysis of their goals, reactions, problems, and successes. After each session, the teachers also completed user reaction questionnaires. Although all teachers succeeded in learning the basics of VAT, they varied considerably in their reuse of the example simulations. It appears that the simplified components of the abstract world supported reuse to a greater degree than those of the concrete example world.”
© All rights reserved Corbett and Anderson and/or ACM Press
Salvucci, Dario D. and Anderson, John R. (2001): Automated Eye-Movement Protocol Analysis. In Human-Computer Interaction, 16 (1) pp. 39-86.
“This article describes and evaluates a class of methods for performing automated analysis of eye-movement protocols. Although eye movements have become increasingly popular as a tool for investigating user behavior, they can be extremely difficult and tedious to analyze. In this article we propose an approach to automating eye-movement protocol analysis by means of tracing-relating observed eye movements to the sequential predictions of a process model. We present three tracing methods that provide fast and robust analysis and alleviate the equipment noise and individual variability prevalent in typical eye-movement protocols. We also describe three applications of the tracing methods that demonstrate how the methods facilitate the use of eye movements in the study of user behavior and the inference of user intentions.”
© All rights reserved Salvucci and and/or Taylor and Francis
Salvucci, Dario D. and Anderson, John R. (2001): Integrating analogical mapping and general problem solving: the path-mapping theory. In Cognitive Science, 25 (1) pp. 67-110.
Salvucci, Dario D. and Anderson, John R. (2000): Intelligent Gaze-Added Interfaces. In: Turner, Thea, Szwillus, Gerd, Czerwinski, Mary, Peterno, Fabio and Pemberton, Steven (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2000 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 1-6, 2000, The Hague, The Netherlands. pp. 273-280.
“We discuss a novel type of interface, the intelligent gaze-added interface, and describe the design and evaluation of a sample gaze-added operating-system interface. Gaze-added interfaces, like current gaze-based systems, allow users to execute commands using their eyes. However, while most gaze-based systems replace the functionality of other inputs with that of gaze, gaze-added interfaces simply add gaze functionality that the user can employ if and when desired. Intelligent gaze-added interfaces utilize a probabilistic algorithm and user model to interpret gaze focus and alleviate typical problems with eye-tracking data. We extended a standard WIMP operating-system interface into a new interface, IGO, that incorporates intelligent gaze-added input. In a user study, we found that users quickly adapted to the new interface and utilized gaze effectively both alone and with other inputs.”
© All rights reserved Salvucci and Anderson and/or ACM Press
Byrne, Michael D., Anderson, John R., Douglass, Scott and Matessa, Michael (1999): Eye Tracking the Visual Search of Click-Down Menus. In: Altom, Mark W. and Williams, Marian G. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 99 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. pp. 402-409.
“Click-down (or pull-down) menus have long been a key component of graphical user interfaces, yet we know surprisingly little about how users actually interact with such menus. Nilsen's [8] study on menu selection has led to the development of a number of models of how users perform the task [6, 21. However, the validity of these models has not been empirically assessed with respect to eye movements (though [1] presents some interesting data that bear on these models). The present study is an attempt to provide data that can help refine our understanding of how users interact with such menus.”
© All rights reserved Byrne et al. and/or ACM Press
Schunn, Christian D. and Anderson, John R. (1999): The generality/specificity of expertise in scientific reasoning. In Cognitive Science, 23 (3) pp. 337-370.
Anderson, John R., Matessa, Michael and Lebiere, Christian (1997): ACT-R: A Theory of Higher Level Cognition and Its Relation to Visual Attention. In Human-Computer Interaction, 12 (4) pp. 439-462.
“The ACT-R system is a general system for modeling a wide range of higher level cognitive processes. Recently, it has been embellished with a theory of how its higher level processes interact with a visual interface. This includes a theory of how visual attention can move across the screen, encoding information into a form that can be processed by ACT-R. This system is applied to modeling several classic phenomena in the literature that depend on the speed and selectivity with which visual attention can move across a visual display. ACT-R is capable of interacting with the same computer screens that subjects do and, as such, is well suited to provide a model for tasks involving human-computer interaction. In this article, we discuss a demonstration of ACT-R's application to menu selection and show that the ACT-R theory makes unique predictions, without estimating any parameters, about the time to search a menu. These predictions are confirmed.”
© All rights reserved Anderson et al. and/or Taylor and Francis
Harvey, Leon and Anderson, John R. (1996): Transfer of Declarative Knowledge in Complex Information-Processing Domains. In Human-Computer Interaction, 11 (1) pp. 69-96.
“Declarative transfer from one domain to another can be observed in a systematic decrease in the time spent reading an instructional text and processing help during problem solving. Two experiments, done in the programming domain, tested the hypothesis that subjects introduced to a first programming language develop a representation of basic programming concepts that helps them integrate new declarative knowledge from a second programming language. This article shows that the effect on reading was greater for pages that were conceptually close across texts and for subjects who had fully mastered the basic concepts in the first language. A regression model of reading showed an effect on processes that are responsible for the analysis of novel words and examples, whereas general strategic reading processes remained unaffected. The increased reading speed was not accompanied by a greater understanding of the text. Effects of a common programming interface and transfer of procedural knowledge appeared to be negligible on the kind of problems considered. This study supports the distinction between procedural and declarative transfer.”
© All rights reserved Harvey and Anderson and/or Taylor and Francis
Anderson, John R. (1996): The Architecture of Cognition. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Wu, Quanfeng and Anderson, John R. (1993): Strategy Choice and Change in Programming. In International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 39 (4) pp. 579-598.
“This research studied looping or iterative choice and change, especially between the "while-do" and "repeat-until" looping constructs in the PASCAL programming language. The empirical results from the first experiment, in which subjects were free to choose between the two looping alternatives, indicated that most PASCAL programmers are quite sensitive to the nature of the problems being solved and adaptable in choosing appropriate looping strategies. Another two experiments were performed in which subjects were either forced or induced to use one of the two looping strategies. These two experiments indicated that subjects are quite tenacious in using the appropriate strategy and their performance deteriorates when they are forced to use a different strategy.”
© All rights reserved Wu and Anderson and/or Academic Press
Gray, Wayne D., Anderson, John R., Reiser, Brian J., Soloway, Elliot and Spohrer, James C. (1991): Tutors and Environments for Novice Programmers. In: Koenemann-Belliveau, Jurgen, Moher, Thomas G. and Robertson, Scott P. (eds.) Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Workshop on Empirical Studies of Programmers 1991, Norwood, New Jersey, USA. pp. 3-4.
Wu, Quanfeng and Anderson, John R. (1991): Strategy Selection and Change in PASCAL Programming. In: Koenemann-Belliveau, Jurgen, Moher, Thomas G. and Robertson, Scott P. (eds.) Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Workshop on Empirical Studies of Programmers 1991, Norwood, New Jersey, USA. pp. 227-238.
“Three experiments were conducted to investigate iterative or looping strategy selection and change, especially between the "while-do" and the "repeat-until" looping constructs, in PASCAL programming. The results from the first experiment, in which subjects were free to choose between the two looping alternatives, indicated that most PASCAL programmers were quite sensitive to problem types and adaptable in choosing appropriate looping strategies. In other two experiments subjects were either forced or primed to use one of the two looping strategies. These experiments revealed that subjects were quite tenacious in using the appropriate strategy and their performance deteriorated when they were forced to use a different strategy. Finally, some implications of our findings to programming language designing and learning were explored.”
© All rights reserved Wu and Anderson and/or Ablex Publishing
Koedinger, Kenneth R. and Anderson, John R. (1990): Abstract Planning and Perceptual Chunks: Elements of Expertise in Geometry. In Cognitive Science, 14 (4) pp. 511-550.
Anderson, John R., Conrad, Frederick G. and Corbett, Albert T. (1989): Skill Acquisition and the LISP Tutor. In Cognitive Science, 13 (4) pp. 467-505.
Gray, Wayne D. and Anderson, John R. (1987): Change-Episodes in Coding: When and How Do Programmers Change Their Code?. In: Olson, Gary M., Sheppard, Sylvia B. and Soloway, Elliot (eds.) Empirical Studies of Programmers - Second Workshop December 7-8 1987, 1987, Washington, DC. pp. 185-197.
“Any change in a programmer's code or intentions while coding constitutes a change-episode. Change-episodes include error detection and correction (including false positives) as well as stylistic, and tactical changes. In this study we examine change-episodes to determine what they can add to the study of the cognition of programming. We argue that change-episodes occur most often for constructs that allow the most variability (with variability defined by the language, the task, and the programmer's history). We predict and find that those constructs that are involved in the most change-episodes are those for which much planning is needed during coding. Similarly, we discuss two ways in which a goal can be changed in a change-episode. One involves relatively minor editing of a goal's subgoals, suggesting that much planning is local to the current goal. The other entails major transformations in the goal's structure. Finally, we find that change-episodes are initiated in one of three very distinct circumstances: as an interrupt to coding, a tag-along to another change-episode, or a byproduct of symbolic execution. Our findings support the distinction between inherent and planning subgoals (2,3) and the distinction between progressive and evaluative problem-solving activities (6).”
© All rights reserved Gray and Anderson and/or Ablex Publishing
Singley, Mark K. and Anderson, John R. (1987): A Keystroke Analysis of Learning and Transfer in Text Editing. In Human-Computer Interaction, 3 (3) pp. 223-274.
“Two experiments studied the acquisition and transfer of text-editing skill. The first experiment, originally reported in Singley and Anderson (1985) but reanalyzed in greater detail here, found nearly total transfer between two similar line editors and partial transfer from the line editors to a screen editor. Analyses of the keystroke data revealed that the majority of the improvement during both learning and transfer was concentrated in the planning components of the skill. The second experiment found little evidence for negative transfer between a pair of screen editors designed for maximal interference using a classic interference paradigm. The few instances of negative transfer observed were better characterized as the positive transfer of nonoptimal methods rather than instances of true procedural interference. These results support an identical elements model of transfer based on a production system representation of cognitive skill. The relative magnitudes of transfer observed were consistent with detailed measures of production system overlap. In addition, localized transfer sites were hypothesized and identified through a series of microanalyses. Finally, specific transfer predictions based on the differential practice of general and specific components were tested and confirmed.”
© All rights reserved Singley and Anderson and/or Taylor and Francis
Katz, Irvin R. and Anderson, John R. (1987): Debugging: An Analysis of Bug-Location Strategies. In Human-Computer Interaction, 3 (4) pp. 351-399.
“This article presents a series of four experiments investigating students' debugging of LISP programs. The experiments involve a population of subjects who know LISP reasonably well and whose errors are best classified as slips (Brown&Van Lehn, 1980). That is, students are unlikely to repeat the same errors either within their program or across programs (Experiment 1). The students' understanding of LISP is also reflected in their debugging behavior: They can usually fix a bug once they locate it. Students' difficulties are in locating the erroneous line of code. We observe that students use a variety of bug-location strategies during debugging (Experiment 2) and that the choice of strategy differs depending on whether students are debugging their own programs or other students' programs (Experiment 3). In addition, we observe that although the different bug-location strategies affect which lines of a program are searched, once students decide on a line, their ability to judge whether or not the line is correct and their ability to correct an error are not substantially affected by the strategy being used to locate the line (Experiment 4). Finally, we argue that our results have implications not only for debugging in other computer languages, but for the general processes involved in troubleshooting as well.”
© All rights reserved Katz and Anderson and/or Taylor and Francis
Kessler, Claudius M. and Anderson, John R. (1986): A Model of Novice Debugging in LISP. In: Soloway, Elliot and Iyengar, Sitharama (eds.) Empirical Studies of Programmers June 5-6 1986, 1986, Washington, DC. pp. 198-212.
“This paper reports an investigation of novice programmers trying to debug one-line LISP functions. We present a model of debugging based on protocol data and introduce a production system simulation of the ideal novice debugger. We conclude with a discussion of the applicability of such a model to the teaching of programming in LISP.”
© All rights reserved Kessler and Anderson and/or Ablex Publishing
Kessler, Claudius M. and Anderson, John R. (1986): Learning Flow of Control: Recursive and Iterative Procedures. In Human-Computer Interaction, 2 (2) pp. 135-166.
“Two experiments were performed to study students' ability to write recursive and iterative programs and transfer between these two skills. Subjects wrote functions to accumulate instances into a list. Problems varied in terms of whether they were recursive or iterative, whether they operated on lists or numbers, whether they accumulated results in forward or backward manner, whether they accumulated on success or failure, and whether they simply skipped or ejected on failure to accumulate. Subjects had real difficulty only with the dimensions concerned with flow of control, namely, recursive versus iterative, and skip versus eject. We found positive transfer from writing iterative functions to writing recursive functions, but not vice versa. A subsequent protocol study revealed subjects had such a poor mental model of recursion that they developed poor learning strategies which hindered their understanding of iteration. It is argued that having an adequate model of the functionality of programming is prerequisite to learning to program, and that it is sensible pedagogical practice to base understanding of recursive flow of control on understanding iterative flow of control.”
© All rights reserved Kessler and Anderson and/or Taylor and Francis
Anderson, John R. and Skwarecki, Edward (1986): The Automated Tutoring of Introductory Computer Programming. In Communications of the ACM, 29 (9) pp. 842-849.
Landauer, Thomas K., Gould, John D., Anderson, John R. and Barnard, Philip J. (1985): Psychological Research Methods in the Human Use of Computers. In: Borman, Lorraine and Curtis, Bill (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 85 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 14-18, 1985, San Francisco, California. pp. 41-45.
“Psychological research methods have been used with increasing frequency in work on computer-human interaction. Judging from the state of the literature and from remarks heard in the halls at conferences such as this, the utility and appropriate roles of such methods are not yet clear. Panel members, who are all research psychologists working on issues related to human use of computers, will present a variety of contrasting views on how to go about such research, and on its proper goals. John Gould will describe two different but complementary approaches, applied research on general design issues, and formative human factors participation in development. John Anderson will discuss the use of formal models of human cognition. Phil Barnard will consider the role of applied research in the discovery of underlying principles to guide design. Tom Landauer will propose that psychological research can be the basis for invention of new "cognitive tools". Short synopses of the positions they will take are given below. Panel members hope that the audience will join them in bringing out important differences between the various approaches and methods and arguing their absolute and relative merits.”
© All rights reserved Landauer et al. and/or ACM Press
Anderson, John R. and Jeffries, Robin (1985): Novice LISP Errors: Undetected Losses of Information from Working Memory. In Human-Computer Interaction, 1 (2) pp. 107-131.
“Four experiments study the errors students make using LISP functions. The first two experiments show that frequency of errors is increased by increasing the complexity of irrelevant aspects of the problem. The experiments also show that the distribution of errors is largely random and that subjects' errors seem to result from slips rather than from misconceptions. Experiment 3 shows that subjects' errors tend to involve loss of parentheses in answers when the resulting errors are well-formed LISP expressions. Experiment 4 asks subjects, who knew no LISP, to judge the reasonableness of the answers to various LISP function calls. Subjects could detect many errors on the basis of general criteria of what a reasonable answer should look like. On the basis of these four experiments, we conclude that errors occur when there is a loss of information in the working memory representation of the problem and when the resulting answer still looks reasonable.”
© All rights reserved Anderson and Jeffries and/or Taylor and Francis
Singley, Mark K. and Anderson, John R. (1985): The Transfer of Text-Editing Skill. In International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 22 (4) pp. 403-423.
“Computer-naive subjects were taught to use either one or two line editors and then a screen editor. Positive transfer was observed both between the line editors and from the line editors to the screen editor. Transfer expressed itself in terms of reductions in total time, keystrokes, residual errors, and seconds per keystroke. A simple two-component model of transfer is proposed that allows for the differential practice of general and specific components when learning a skill.”
© All rights reserved Singley and Anderson and/or Academic Press
Anderson, John R. (1983): The Architecture of Cognition. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press
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Changes to this page (author)
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