When mental models go wrong: co-occurrences in dynamic, critical systems

When mental models go wrong: co-occurrences in dynamic, critical systems

This paper highlights a psychological phenomenon affecting the accuracy of mental models. It occurs when two consecutive events happen as expected by an operator. Typically, such a situation reinforces the confidence in one’s mental model. However, consecutive events can happen as a random co-occurrence, for reasons that actually differ from the ones believed by the operator. Nonetheless, becau...

When Things Go Wrong: Interrupting Conversations

This paper presents a true-concurrent approach to formalising integration of Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with Web services. Our approach formalises common notions in service-oriented computing such as conversations (interactions between clients and web services), multi-party conversations (interactions between multiple web services) and coordination protocols, which are central in a tran...

Periodic paralyses: when channels go wrong.

In 1865, Claude Bernard wrote that ‘the constancy of the internal milieu is the essential condition to a free and independent life’ [1]. It would be hard to find a more illustrative paradigm for that statement than for the case of hyperkalaemic periodic paralysis (HyperPP) reported by Grgic et al. in this issue [2]. A 14-year-old male was admitted for a sudden ascending paralysis involving the ...

Getting it right when things go wrong.

Mental Models of Dynamic Systems

Glossary Bounded rationality: the theory that human decision making is rational only insofar as the rational solution does not require calculations or mental efforts that exceed cognitive limitations Causal loop diagramming: A diagramming technique for representing the feedback structure of systems in which variables are linked by causal arrows that indicate the direction (positive or negative)...