A principal limitation of frame-based computer assisted instruction (CAI) results not from the characteristics of the computer medium, but rather from prior instructional design practices, specifically the logical abstraction of behavioral objectives. Learning hierarchy-based instruction implemented in the interactive computer-based medium results in sets of both global and local branching difficulties. Such difficulties include the potential for the subtree mastery assumption to be falsified or for the occurrence of response errors which could stem from psychological or cognitive considerations rather than from logical ones. Although large-scale translation of extant curricula based on logical hierarchies into the CAI format offers no fundamental advance in the practice of instruction, the interactive quality of the new medium does promote change toward a reformulation of instruction in terms of the more appropriate alternative of psychological task analysis. Eight references are listed. (Author/LMM)