Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This paper addresses the role that examples play in instructional learning. We discuss several roles examples can serve when they complement an instruction. W e provide functional evidence for some of these roles, arguing why instructions and examples are both necessary for efficient learning. We present a system that lezirns from instructions which are enhanced by examples. The system, A N T (Acquisition using Native-language Transfer), learns a second language by reading instructions about grammatical rules of the second language as well as examples which use these rules. Finally, we argue for the functional utility of examples in instructional learning on more general grounds, showing how such a strategy can beappHcable to other domains besides second language learning.