Conceptual model and mental model

Modelling, and in particular the construction of conceptual models, is an essential activity in the designing of information systems. Experience has shown the limits of conceptual models as a support in communicating and in the transmission of knowledge. The purpose of this article is to bring up some elements which can explain these difficulties. After a restatement about the object of conceptual modelling, which is a representation, (a mental model), we will show that mental models, contrary to conceptual models, do not have a structural analogy with language; consequently conceptual models are not good models of mental models. They do not translate certain essential characteristics; notably conceptual models do not reflect the richness of the sensory-motor dimension of mental models.