The role of explicit action statements in understanding and using written directions

Abstract

In three experiments, subjects read directions in which the form of a step was varied independently of its content. In the drawing task used in Experiment 1, stating a step as either an explicit action or an implicit action had no effect on reading time. However, in the knob-turning/meter-setting task used in Experiment 2, directions were read faster when they began with an explicit action instead of an implicit action. These conflicting results were interpreted in terms of what subjects knew about the two tasks: The drawing task was familiar and well understood, while the knob/meter task was relatively novel. The third experiment confirmed this effect of prior knowledge. Subjects who were either high or low on cooking knowledge read and recalled several recipes, and an effect of stating an action explicitly was found only for low-knowledge subjects. It was concluded that the form in which a step is stated is a cue to whether or not that information is a central, important part of the procedure, but that this cue is not used when one's knowledge of the domain allows this judgment to be made on the basis of the nature of the information.