Hypertext Navigation and Conflicting Goal Intentions: Distraction and Volitional Protection in Learning and Problem Solving

We describe an experimental study of difficulty related distraction by conflicting goal intentions in learning and problem solving with hypertext. Log files are used to capture hypertext navigation in the face of opportunities to implement competing goal intentions. We study how task difficulty influences the volitional protection of the current goal intention. First attempts to integrate volitional action control processes into cognitive architectures are presented. Conflicting Goal Intentions in Hypertext Navigation The investigation of learning and problem solving with hypertext gains increasing importance as the use of computer-based learning environments and information retrieval systems develops. A main feature of hypertext is that the user does not react to static texts, but chooses according to his or her current intention when and in which order the information is to be presented (Barab, Bowdish, Young & Owen, 1996). Accordingly, Barab et al. (1996) have shown that users' intentions in interacting with hypertext can be predicted from navigational paths captured in log files (computerized records of screens visited that are stamped with the amount of time spent on each screen). The opportunity of navigating through hypertext environments according to one’s own intentions allows for great flexibility and adaptivity of learning and problem solving, it is however also responsible for some difficulties. Users tend to be structurally or conceptually disoriented in complex hyperspaces and they seem to suffer from cognitive overload, if the navigational task consumes too much of their resources. In this paper we will focus on a further problem concerning navigating through hypertext environments, namely the problem of being distracted by conflicting goal intentions. We assume that learning and problem solving are to be analyzed as goal-directed behavior and furthermore that most learners possess numerous waiting goal intentions not related to the current task. These waiting intentions can be activated by situational cues in the hypertext environment and then compete with the current goal intention for execution. If the user is attracted by these cues, the current goal intention may be suspended in favor of activities related to the competing intention (serendipity-effect), or in favor of deliberating which of the two intentions should be further pursued. Distraction due to conflicting goal intentions should lead to efficiency impairments in learning and problem solving. Distraction and Volitional Protection: Framework and Hypotheses If actions are considered as sequences of activities directed towards a common goal intention, the term "action control" can be introduced to describe automatic and controlled processes that determine which activity is selected in the next step of the sequence. Action control includes processes that are predominantly cognitive (e.g. the selection of a schema or production rule for execution), predominantly motivational (e.g. the formation of a goal intention), or predominantly volitional (e.g. the maintenance of a goal intention in the face of difficulties or competing intentions). Accordingly, theories from different fields of psychology are concerned with the analysis of action control. From a cognitive perspective, action control is analyzed by theories of working memory and attention that postulate a supervisory attentional system responsible for intentional shifts of task sets and the control of working memory (Norman & Shallice, 1986). Experimental research on shifts between different tasks (e.g. Rogers & Monsell, 1995) and computer modeling of multiple-task performance (EPIC,