Is Explicit Information Important for Performance in Dynamic Systems?

In order to gain some insight in how to assist understanding and performance in dynamic systems, participants were asked to interact with a predator-prey system on a personal computer. Their task was to achieve equilibrium by controlling the size of the predator population. Results were presented in line graphs in all three conditions. In one condition pictures illustrating the population sizes was added, intended to make this information more explicit. In a second condition pictures illustrated the prevailing conditions in the system, to explicitly suggest conclusions to be drawn and actions to be taken. Although this was expected to facilitate performance, the results revealed an equally low performance in all groups. The overall success rate was 33%. This could be explained either as failure in interpreting the line graphs and/or the pictures not being explicit enough to assist deduction. Further research is needed to settle which was the case.