The Cognitive Demands of Learning and Representing Command Names for Text Editing

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the cognitive demands of learning command namesets as well as an experimental investigation of text-editing performance. The study was designed to examine the immediate and delayed effects of command sets varying in their transparency. The command set consisted of eight editing commands and two file-transfer commands. The command names were either specific names, abbreviations, unrelated words, pseudowords, or unrelated letter strings. Thirty subjects underwent a four-part exercise over three days. Significant effects of command set were found on virtually every measure examined, including completion time, rate and type of error, editing strategy, rate of learning, and memory for command names. Specific command names were clearly superior, unrelated letter strings produced poor performance, and on most measures everything else, including abbreviations, fell between.

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