Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

There is little doubt that examples play a major role in acquiring a n e w skill. H o w examples improve learning, however, is subject to some debate. Re- cently, two different classes of theories have been pro- posed to explain w h y examples are such an effective manner of learning. Example Generalization m o d - els suggest that problem solving rules are acquired while studying examples. Knowledge Compilation models, on the other hand, suggest that examples are useful because they guide future problem solv- ing, where the necessary rules are created. Consis- tent with knowledge compilation models, w e found that separating target problems from source exam- ples hindered learning because the source exeimples could not be remembered to guide problem solving. W e also found that if sources are not accessible or re- m e m b e r e d during problem solving, learning occurs best w h e n the sources are problems to be solved, rather than examples. Taken together, these results provide strong support for the knowledge compilation view: in order for an example to be most effective, the knowledge gained from the example must be ap- plied to solving a new problem.