Up until now there has been no agreement on what a mental model of a physical system is and how to infer the mental model a person has. This paper describes research aimed at solving these problems by proposing that a Mental Model is a dynamic representation created in WM by combining information stored in LTM (the Conceptual Model of the system) and characteristics extracted from the environme...

The aim of this paper is to present a cognitive model of causal reasoning about the psysical world and a related computational system. The cognitive model is based on the theory of mental models and on two main assumptions, the assumption of reasoning by examples and the assumption of causality by contact. The computational model has been developed using an Extended version of the Qualitative P...

Mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety affect an individual's ability to undertake health-promoting behaviors. Chronic diseases can have a profound impact on an individual's mental health; in turn, mental health status affects an individual's ability to participate in treatment and recovery. A group of mental health and public health professionals convened to develop a logic model for a...

We argue that molecular visualization is a process that includes constructing a mental model. Current qualitative research has shown that participants working on a mental molecular visualization/rotation task invoke components of a mental model. Four of the components are static representations: referents, relations, results, and rules/syntax. The fifth component is dynamic: operation. Two exam...

Empirical findings indicate that humans draw inferences about spatial arrangements by constructing and manipulating mental models which are internal representations of objects and relations in spatial working memory. Central to the Mental Model Theory (MMT), is the assumption that the human reasoning process can be divided into three phases: (i) Mental model construction, (ii) model inspection,...

Gaps between worldviews prevent students from interpreting displays literally, and thus limit the extent to which communication can be achieved by representing knowledge accurately. Hence, rather than merely representing mental models accurately, designers must focus on supporting communicative practices. I suggest four specific design principles within a mediated collaborative inquiry perspect...