Some Observations on Mental Models

Abstract

One function of this chapter is to belabor the obvious; people’s views of the world, of themselves, of their own capabilities, and of the tasks that they are asked to perform, or topics they are asked to learn, depend heavily on the conceptualizations that they bring to the task. In interacting with the environ­ ment, with others, and with the artifacts of technology, people form internal, mental models of themselves and of the things with which they are interacting. These models provide predictive and explanatory power for understanding the interaction. These statements hardly need be said, for they are consistent with all that we have learned about cognitive processes and, within this book, represent the major underlying conceptual theme. Nonetheless, it does not hurt to repeat them and amplify them, for the scope of the implications of this view is larger than one might think.

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