Mental Models

2011 ◽  
pp. 574-579
Author(s):  
Daniel Churchill
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Repeated Application ◽  
Internal Representations ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mind's Eye ◽  
Cognitive Practice

It is widely assumed that mental models are internal representations. Humans are capable of constructing these models when required by demands of an external task or by a self-generated stimulus. “Mind’s eye” can see, run, and interact with these mental models. Rather than stored in strictly fixed form in the mind, mental models are constructed on the spot when needed. Repeated application leads to refinement of a mental model and possible automation of its construction and use processes in one’s cognitive practice.

Case Study: The Wrong Mental Model can Kill You

2007 ◽  
Vol 51 (9) ◽  
pp. 554-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Nemire
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
External World ◽  
Roller Coaster ◽  
Internal Representations ◽  
Study Participants

Mental models are internal representations of the external world that are thought to influence perception and decision-making. An inappropriate mental model of a “roller coaster” was hypothesized to have caused the injury of one person and the death of another in a roller coaster incident. A study was conducted to learn about existing internal representations of roller coasters. Participants were asked to draw a roller coaster. Despite the existence of several types of roller coasters, 98% of the study participants drew a roller coaster representing the oldest and most prevalent type of coaster. The results of the study are discussed with respect to this injury incident and the importance of educating product users about more appropriate mental models that may help prevent injury or death.

Roller Coasters, Mental Models, and Product Safety

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Nemire
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
External World ◽  
Product Safety ◽  
Roller Coaster ◽  
Internal Representations ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Safety Guidelines

Mental models – internal representations of the external world – influence perception and decision making. An inappropriate mental model of a roller coaster contributed to one injury and one death in a roller coaster incident. This study revealed that participants' mental models represented the oldest and most prevalent type of roller coaster, despite the existence of several different types. Investigating mental models of users involved in injury incidents often reveals how such incidents occur. To prevent inaccurate mental models from leading users into hazardous situations, product and system designers should follow product safety guidelines to eliminate or reduce the hazards.

Where is the body in the mental model for a story?

1997 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur C. Graesser
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
The Body ◽  
Discourse Processing ◽  
On Line

Researchers in the field of discourse processing have investigated how mental models are constructed when adults comprehend stories. They have explored the process of encoding various classes of inferences “on-line” when these mental microworlds are constructed during comprehension. This commentary addresses the extent to which these inferences and mental microworlds are “embodied.”

Watch For Failing Objects: What Inappropriate Compliance Reveals About Shared Mental Models In Autonomous Cars

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 643-647
Author(s):  
Yosef S. Razin ◽  
Jack Gale ◽  
Jiaojiao Fan ◽  
Jaznae’ Smith ◽  
Karen M. Feigh
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
False Positive Rate ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
True Positive Rate ◽  
Shared Mental Models ◽  
Shared Mental Model ◽  
Autonomous Cars ◽  
Positive Rate ◽  
Dispositional Factors

This paper evaluates Banks et al.’s Human-AI Shared Mental Model theory by examining how a self-driving vehicle’s hazard assessment facilitates shared mental models. Participants were asked to affirm the vehicle’s assessment of road objects as either hazards or mistakes in real-time as behavioral and subjective measures were collected. The baseline performance of the AI was purposefully low (<50%) to examine how the human’s shared mental model might lead to inappropriate compliance. Results indicated that while the participant true positive rate was high, overall performance was reduced by the large false positive rate, indicating that participants were indeed being influenced by the Al’s faulty assessments, despite full transparency as to the ground-truth. Both performance and compliance were directly affected by frustration, mental, and even physical demands. Dispositional factors such as faith in other people’s cooperativeness and in technology companies were also significant. Thus, our findings strongly supported the theory that shared mental models play a measurable role in performance and compliance, in a complex interplay with trust.

scholarly journals Problem based learning: Students’ mental models on water conductivity concept

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 269
Author(s):  
John Rafafy Batlolona ◽  
Haryo Franky Souisa
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Problem Based Learning ◽  
Water Conductivity ◽  
Education Change ◽  
Pbl Model

This paper tells about the mental model of prospective scholars on the topic of temperature and heat. The purpose of this research is to improve students’ mental model by using problem based learning (PBL) model. The number of samples in the study amounted to 72 students with two different classes. The results of the study showed that, (1) the improvement of mental model that studied with PBL was higher than that studied with conventional learning. (2) high-skilled student mental models that are learning with PBL are higher than those studied by conventional learning. (3) low-skilled student mental models that study with PBL are higher than students learning with conventional learning. The conclusion of this study is the improvement of students' mental models using PBL models on the topic of conductivity in water. Thus the PBL model can be recommended in improving students' mental models on temperature and heat topics. The implication in this research is to improve the students' mental model as the agent of science education change.

scholarly journals How Influential Are Mental Models on Interaction Performance? Exploring the Gap between Users’ and Designers’ Mental Models through a New Quantitative Method

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bingjun Xie ◽  
Jia Zhou ◽  
Huilin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Quantitative Method ◽  
User Performance ◽  
Card Sorting ◽  
Information Structures ◽  
Path Diagram ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Model Similarity ◽  
The Relationship

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the gap between two different mental models on interaction performance through a quantitative way. To achieve that, an index called mental model similarity and a new method called path diagram to elicit mental models were introduced. There are two kinds of similarity: directionless similarity calculated from card sorting and directional similarity calculated from path diagram. An experiment was designed to test their influence. A total of 32 college students participated and their performance was recorded. Through mathematical analysis of the results, three findings were derived. Frist, the more complex the information structures, the lower the directional similarity. Second, directional similarity (rather than directionless similarity) had significant influence on user performance, indicating that it is more effective in eliciting mental models using path diagram than card sorting. Third, the relationship between information structures and user performance was partially mediated by directional similarity. Our findings provide practitioners with a new perspective of bridging the gap between users’ and designers’ mental models.

Mental models, humorous texts and humour evaluation

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henri de Jongste
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Model Theory ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Model Construction ◽  
Mental Model Theory ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Manipulation Process ◽  
The Way

Abstract This paper investigates how a mental-model theory of communication can explain differences in humorous texts and how aesthetic criteria to evaluate humour are dependent on the way mental models are exploited. Humour is defined as the deliberate manipulation by speakers of their private mental models of situations in order to create public mental models which contain one or more incongruities. Recipients can re-construct this manipulation process and thereby evaluate its nature and its quality. Humorous texts can be distinguished in terms of ownership of the manipulated mental model, the relationship between the speakers’ private and their public (humorous) mental model, as well as the speed required in the humorous mental model construction. Possible aesthetic criteria are the quality of the mental model manipulation, the pressure under which the humorously manipulated mental models have been constructed and the quality of the presentation of humorous mental models.

THE POWER OF MATERNAL IMPRESSION CAUSES THE ALLEGED FATHER'S NAME TO APPEAR IN LEGIBLE LETTERS IN HIS INFANT SON'S RIGHT EYE (1817)

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 901-901
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
Young Woman ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Full Length ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Mind's Eye

During the 19th century the question of maternal impressions was still unresolved. A curious example of the putative power of this phenomenon is given below. A similar instance was reported about 1825 by Dr. Munro of Edinburgh who frequently exhibited a child in whose eyes many persons imagined they could read the name and age of his father. A young woman in Galloway [Scotland] having proved with child, laid the same to a respectable man of the name John Woods, who denied being the father of the same, and persisted in his denial saying that he would never acknowledge the child unless his name was written at full length on its face; and he accordingly gave his solemn oath before the court to that effect. This made so much impression on the mind of the young woman, who was present, that his name and person remained constantly in her mind's eye, and when the child was born, the name of the father appeared in legible letters in the child's eye, the name of "JOHN WOODS," on the right eye, and "BORN 1817" on the left eye. When John Woods, the alleged father, came to know this circumstance, he instantly absconded and has not since been heard of. This wonderful child has now arrived in this city [Edinburgh], and has been inspected by the Professors and other learned Faculties of this city, and pronounced to be a most wonderful phenomenon of nature, and an astonishing dispensation of Providence in pointing out the truth against the wicked and perjured ways of men.

Douglas Gordon and the Gallery of the Mind

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mind's Eye ◽  
Made In

Made in collaboration with Rufus Wainwright after the loss of his mother, Douglas Gordon’s Phantom (2011) engages gallery-goers in an embodied perceptual experience of the darkness of grief, which is felt as well as seen. And yet the titular phantom points to what ghosts embodied vision, making space for images of the mind’s eye. Lost love, mourned but also conjured back through memory, dream, or imagination, extends beyond the personal to include a bygone era of classical film. Phantom draws from and returns us to cinema, expanding the experience of the moving image through its insistence upon the importance of both what is present or visible in the gallery space and what exists in the liminal state of mental vision.

The Effectiveness of Online Task Support vs. Instructor-Led Training

2011 ◽  
pp. 77-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Ye Mao ◽  
Bradley R. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Performance Difference ◽  
Model Completeness ◽  
Task Support ◽  
Microsoft Access ◽  
Novice Users ◽  
The Difference ◽  
High Level ◽  
Level Performance

This study investigates the effectiveness of online task support (the wizard type in particular) relative to instructor-led training, and explores the underlying cognitive process in terms of the development of mental models. Ninety-two novice users of Microsoft Access were either trained by an experienced instructor or performed exercises with online task support, and then completed a variety of performance-based tests. Analysis shows that users of online task support tended to outperform instructor-trained individuals on high-level tasks, whereas the performance difference on low-level tasks was not significant. The cognitive processes underlying the difference are also noteworthy. Task support users were more likely to develop conceptual mental models as opposed to procedural ones, which accounted for their better high-level performance. Mental model completeness was also found to be closely associated with performance on both low and high-level tasks. These findings offer support for increased use of online task support.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document