Glossary · Cognition and analysis methods
Mental model
German: mentales Modell
In cognitive science and usability, a mental model is an internal representation of how something works — a system, a situation or a relationship — that a person uses to understand, predict and decide, for example a user's belief about how a machine or software behaves.
- Cognitive science
- Technical documentation
In one sentence
A mental model is a person's internal representation of how something works, used to understand, predict and decide — documentation builds and corrects it.
Example
An operator who believes that the stop button removes all energy from the machine has a wrong mental model; the instructions must correct it before the lockout procedure makes sense.
Explained in context
Context cards connect this term with others to answer one question. Also in British English and German.
- Mental models and concept information: why readers need to know how it works before they actTransitional topicHow does research on mental models support placing concept information before task information in technical documentation?UKDeutsch
- Human error types and troubleshooting: from slips, lapses and mistakes to recovery informationTransitional topicHow do the error types of James Reason and Jens Rasmussen's skill-, rule- and knowledge-based behavior help design troubleshooting and recovery information?UKDeutsch
- Cognitive psychology in technical communication: theory, application and the bridges between themTransitional topicWhat is the difference between cognitive psychology as theory and its application in documentation, and how do the two fit together?UKDeutsch
- Working memory and procedure steps: why "seven plus or minus two" is the wrong ruleTransitional topicDoes working memory research justify a fixed maximum number of steps in a procedure, such as seven plus or minus two?UKDeutsch
- How first principles thinking evolved: an adaptation of many adaptationsTransitional topicWhere does first principles thinking come from, and how has it changed on its way to technical writing?UKDeutsch
How it applies
- Cognitive science: Kenneth Craik proposed in 1943 that the mind builds "small-scale models" of reality to anticipate events; Philip Johnson-Laird developed the idea into a theory of reasoning (Mental Models, 1983).
- Design: Donald Norman distinguishes the designer's model, the system image and the user's model; much of usability is about bringing the user's mental model close to how the product actually works.
- Technical documentation: Documentation builds and corrects mental models. Conceptual information comes first where a wrong model would make the steps meaningless or dangerous.
- Popular sense: the decision-making literature uses "mental model" for a named thinking tool — that sense has its own entry in the art of thinking glossaries: mental model (thinking tool).
Mental model (cognitive science) vs. mental model (thinking tool)
The first is what a person believes about how something works — the sense documentation works with; the second, mental model (thinking tool), is a method for thinking about anything. Thinking models for technical writers are mental models in the second sense whose purpose is to give readers the right mental models in the first.