are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures and images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action Very often we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the effects they have on our behaviour 3
A mental model is a rule system that is internal to humans It can also be a shared mental model that is maintained as an emergent property from an organization of agents
An individual's existing understanding and interpretation of a given concept, which is formed and reformed on the basis of experiences, beliefs, values, socio-cultural histories, and prior perceptions Our mental models (or schemas) affect how we interpret new concepts and events (Lambert & Walker, 1995, p 1 )
This term refers to the way in which the user thinks of the task that the application is automating If the application is a painting program, the artist thinks in terms of surface (canvas, art paper, velum, etc ), media (crayon, pencil, tempera, oils, etc ) and color (perhaps HSV or fixed pigment mixing, probably not CMYK and definitely not RGB)
A representation of a problem space that is held inside the head of the problem solver A good mental model forms an analogue of the real world representation of the problem In other words, this model should have the same functional nature and structure as the system it models See [Johnson-Laird83] and [Ormerod90]
(see also textbook glossary) A knowledge structure that a person creates in order to help the person understand events
A representation of the whole body of knowledge unique to an individual; enabling the individual to perform complex thinking tasks Defining mental models is important in analysing the causes of problems and the definition of success
The picture or concept that is formed in the human mind when no other model is available
a mental representation that people use to organize their experience about themselves, others, the environment, and the things with which they interact; its functional role is to provide predictive and explanatory power for understanding these phenomena
Humans establish mental models of how things work, or how they would behave in a particular situation For example, having been a student at a university for a while, a student can establish a "mental model" of attending a university That is, he goes to classes, talks to his classmates about how to accomplish certain homeworks, he knows how to interact with his professors, and etc Suppose now a virtual university is being offered to students for online courses, and a website is to be constructed for the virtual university This website should understand and respect the "mental models" of targeted students in order to avoid confusion for the students to find his way around at the virtual university