About cookies on this site Our websites require some cookies to function properly (required). In addition, other cookies may be used with your consent to analyze site usage, improve the user experience and for advertising. For more information, please review your options. By visiting our website, you agree to our processing of information as described in IBM’sprivacy statement. To provide a smooth navigation, your cookie preferences will be shared across the IBM web domains listed here.
Publication
Behaviour and Information Technology
Paper
A descriptive study of mental models†
Abstract
A theoretical discussion of mental models is interwoven with conversational data from an interview study concerned with people's beliefs about the working of high-street bank machines. The data show that some users do spontaneously form explanatory models of bank machines, and further allow some insights into the ways in which models are constructed. The discussion focuses on the variety inherent in subjects' models; on the spontaneous analogies they invoke; on the use of cultural, linguistic metaphor and its relation to explanatory models; and on the observed preference for references to direct empirical experience. © 1991 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.