Mental Models are neither mental nor models

5th May 2010

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Mental Models are neither mental nor models

I don’t like the concept of mental models. The idea of a mental model priviledges the mental aspects of how people understand artefacts and glosses over the others. The idea that the model-in-the-head is completely representative of the act- in-the-world is kind of weird.

Let’s say that you have a “mental model” of reading a book. The model is not just in your head. It’s in your hands, in your body and in the world, too. Books have a feel to them — they’re not just an idea.

If you’ve never used an iPad you probably do have a mental model of reading on one because you’ll have had imagine it all. Things get complicated if you’ve used an iPhone. How do you combine the experience of using an iPhone and the experience of using a book?

I also dislike the idea of mental models. A model implies a degree of precision and also suggests that the model is able to be examined and interrogated. I don’t think most people have a model of reading a book. I think that a lot of people, though, have an understanding of what reading a book is like. Very few people reflect on everyday acts like reading in a way that lets them construct a model in their head.

It’s possible to argue that the term “mental models” has come to mean something other than a model, however crude, in someone’s head of some aspect of being human but that ignores that words have meanings and that overloading those meanings rarely makes anything clearer.

Tagged: ooh ranty

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Mental Models are neither mental nor models