Maulsby, David L.Witten, Ian H.2008-02-262008-02-261988-03-01http://hdl.handle.net/1880/45588This paper studies the acquisition of procedural knowledge, or "know-how", from end-users in the domain of interactive graphics. In order to develop an open-ended system that is not restricted to any particular class of drawings, heavy emphasis is placed on the user interface. Experts (we call them simply "teachers") express procedures constructively, using any of the tools available in the interactive drawing environment. Well-structured procedures, including branches and loops, are inferred using a variety of weak generalization heuristics. The teacher's attention is concentrated on the system's perceptual and inferential shortcomings through a metaphorical apprentice called "Meta-Mouse". Its sensors are predominantly tactile, which forces teachers to make their constructions explicit. Meta-Mouse generalizes action sequences on the fly and eagerly carries out any actions it can predict. Theoretical support for the design comes from two sources: geometric phenomenology, which confirms that powerful problem-solving methods are associated with common-place spatial reasoning; and the fact that Meta-Mouse automatically imposes important "felicity conditions" on the teacher's demonstrations.EngComputer Scienceunknown1988-302-1410.11575/PRISM/30905