thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (10/17/89)
It seems to me that you can find metaphors but you can't find mental models. Is this my imagination? Please don't tell me that a mental model is a bunch of metaphors. I was browsing thru Donald Normans book "User Centered System Design" and noticed that there is no index entry for metaphors, just for mental models. So where have all the metaphors gone? Any help much appreciated. Thanks. --Thom Gillespie
norman@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Donald A Norman-UCSD Cog Sci Dept) (10/17/89)
..In article <31966@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
..thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes: It seems to
..me that you can find metaphors but you can't find mental models. Is
..this my imagination? Please don't tell me that a mental model is a
..bunch of metaphors.
My quick response is:
Mental models and metaphors are very distinct and different things.
But neither are well understood. Lakoff and friends have done much to
popularize the importance of metaphor in thought and language
(also see the earlier book by Ortony -- more in the standard tradition
of psychological and linguistic modeling but also considerably older
and less fun to read). Metaphors often can serve as starting points
for mental models.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Ortony, A. (Ed.). (1980). Metaphor and thought. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
UCB Main BF455 .M47
(UCB library call given since the original correspondent was from UC, Berkeley)
My quick definition -- which won't pass for long but which will help
get things started -- is that a metaphor is the use of knowledge in
one domain as a prototype (model? framework?) for discussing,
understanding or operating in another domain. This leaves open the
mechanisms and the nature of the mapping between domains, how the
relevant dimensions are appropriated and the irrelevant suppressed or
modified, and how the new domain is appropriately understood despite
the fact that there are known and obvious differences. There is a
huge amount of work on these aspects of the use of metaphor.
A mental model is the set of mental knowledge (including procedural
knowledge) of the operations of some system. The model allows for
some level of prediction and understanding, and is of special
relevance when:
A. initially learning the system;
B. things go wrong and troubleshooting must take place;
C. unexpected events occur and problem solving behavior is
necessary.
Mental models are probably not much used by skilled operators in
routine operation -- they will get aplied only under conditions B and
C, and for really skilled operators, the standard set of
things-going-wrong or "unexpected" events are probably handled by
skilled routines and do not require mental models or troubleshooting.
Thus, skilled airline pilots are so well trained for most major
malfunctions so that they seldom need to call upon mental models of
the aircraft and its systems.(This is one of those observations not
necessarily accepted by everyone, but that to me explains some of the
limitations of the mental model work and why they have been so
difficult to study).
Metphaors are often useful to describe and explain new systems by
allowing the intial learning to capitalize on prior knowledge. This
does not mean that metaphors are mental models -- they, by themselves,
do not provide explanatory structure nor proecedural information. And
metaphors are, well, metaphorical -- they never are completely
appropriate for the new domain. A mental model does have explanatory
and procedural information and is specifically for the domain in
question. As Lakoff et al show, metaphors also carry with them a lot
of extra baggage that carries considerable inference power and
entailements that may or may not be what the users intended, but the
metaphor esentially forces them into buying into the entire structure.
---
Perhaps you can begin to see that the discussion will expand rapidly
from here. The long-for-email, but short-for-science discussion above
leaves much to be desired and probably confuses and confounds some
issues.
Personally, I have found the literature on mental models to be less
and less useful -- almost makes me doubt their existence. They are
tricky things to study, but some progress has been made. A good
summary is:
Rouse, W. B., & Morris, N. M. (1986). On looking into the black box:
Prospects and limits in the search for mental models. Psychological
Bulletin, 100, 349-363.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Don Norman INTERNET: dnorman@ucsd.edu
Department of Cognitive Science D-015 BITNET: dnorman@ucsd
University of California, San Diego AppleLink: d.norman
La Jolla, California 92093 USA
[e-mail paths often fail: please give postal address and full e-mail path.]larso@emil.CSD.UU.Se (Lars Oestreicher) (10/23/89)
>It seems to me that you can find metaphors but you can't find mental >models. Is this my imagination? Please don't tell me that a mental model >is a bunch of metaphors. I was browsing thru Donald Normans book "User >Centered System Design" and noticed that there is no index entry for >metaphors, just for mental models. So where have all the metaphors gone? Apparently, metaphors are not the same thing as mental models. First, it is necessary to realize that the concept of "a mental model" is not a commonly agreed upon concept. I will just give the point of view that I find useful, based upon discussions with colleagues. A mental model is something that is in the head of the person. It is therefore not possible to study directly. Instead we have to study the results from the person's use of his/her mental model. Therefore, e.g., in computer usage, an incorrect action in a computer system might (but only might) be a result of the user having an incorrect mental model. The form of the mental model, i.e., it's "shape in the mind" is in most cases impossible to define or study. In my opinion the representation issue constitutes a less interesting question. It is more important to study how the mental model can be improved, i.e., give the user better support in using systems. A metaphor (or rather analogy) is an aid for a user, but is to me of a more "physical" kind. It is more a given model of a system like "the desktop", "the mail system", etc. Analogies are useful for instructing people, but asn analogy is not the same thing as a mental model. On the other hand, the mental model may use analogies in some users' minds. I agree, the mental model is *not* a bunch of metaphors, but rather a much more complex structure. Hope some people agrees with this, otherwise I look forward to an interesting discussion on this topic. Please, let us use no flames in this debate, since I feel that this topic is touchy. -- SMail: Lars Oestreicher Email: larso@emil.CSD.UU.SE Dept. of Computing Science Uppsala University P.O. Box 520 Phone: Int. +46 - 18 18 10 19 S-751 20 Uppsala Nat. 018 - 18 10 19 SWEDEN
d-yang@cs.columbia.edu (David Yang) (10/24/89)
This may be a bit remote, but ...
I'm looking for papers/books on using metaphors to code pictures,
specifically, dot patterns. E.g., both
. .
. . . .
. .
. . . .
. . . .
might be coded as an "X". (Of course, to do the coding, one needs
to use some properties to decide that the pattern is actually an "X".)
The closest I've found is in E.L.J. Leeuwenberg's work
(Structural Information of Visual Patterns, 1968;
"A Perceptual Coding Language for Visual and Auditory Patterns,"
in Am. J. of Psychology, 1971, 84:3:307-349)
and gestalt psych works like Max Wertheimer
(in Ellis, A Source Book of Gestalt Psychology, 1938).
Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
(Please respond by e-mail, if possible.)
Advance thanks,
David Yang
yang@cs.columbia.edumccarthy@SRC.Honeywell.COM (Jim McCarthy) (10/24/89)
In his posting of 10/23/89, Lars Oestreicher stated: > The form of the mental model, i.e., it's "shape in the mind" is in most > cases impossible to define or study. In my opinion the representation > issue constitutes a less interesting question. My vested interests (I'm doing research on this topic) prevents me from agreeing. At the annual meeting of the Human Factors Society last year, and again this year, my colleague (and fellow graduate student) Mark Cushman and I presented ongoing research posters detailing our work in knowledge representation. In brief, we discussed the relative efficacy (in obtaining valid representations) of two data collection techniques (card sorting and pair-wise comparisons) and three representational tools (Mutidimensional scaling, Cluster analysis, and the PATHFINDER algorithm). Again in brief, we found that there were clear expert/novice differences in the representations obtained (confirming earlier work by others), that, within the Clustering solutions, there was a qualitative difference in the representations stemming from the card sorting and paired comparison techniques, but that, although the experts demonstrated a clear preference for the card sorting solutions, these representations did not differ in there validity (where validity was defined as the ability to complete partial clusters). That is, the card sorting derived clusters were completed just as accurately as the paired comparison derived clusters. My point is this, using techniques such as those discussed here (as well as others) researchers are able to obtain functionally useful knowledge representations. I believe that these representation give us a peek at the mental models resident in experts and novices in a number of domains. Are these representations useful? I believe they are. Mark and I are just beginning a new cycle of research aimed at determing the usefulness of these representations in instructional (as "advanced organizers" or "anticipatory sets") and evaluative settings. Further, it seems to me that such representations could greatly aid in the way information is presented. For example, I can imagine an intelligent menu system which gradually changes its structure as a novice user becomes more expert-like in his/her mental model of the software's function. Because this research line is something of a hobby for Mark and I as we continue our graduate careers is other areas, it is possible we are taking a nieve look at the literature. I'm interested if others on the net feel as we do that these representations portray mental models, and that they are potentially useful in terms of instruction, evaluation, etc.. If you don't feel like posting your opinions please feel free to email me. Jim McCarthy
quinn@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Clark Quinn) (10/25/89)
In article <36145@srcsip.UUCP> mccarthy@SRC.Honeywell.COM (Jim McCarthy) writes: >In his posting of 10/23/89, Lars Oestreicher stated: > >> The form of the mental model, i.e., it's "shape in the mind" is in most >> cases impossible to define or study. In my opinion the representation >> issue constitutes a less interesting question. > >My vested interests (I'm doing research on this topic) prevents me from >agreeing. > >In brief, we discussed the relative efficacy (in obtaining >valid representations) of two data collection techniques (card sorting and >pair-wise comparisons) > >My point is this, using techniques such as those discussed here (as well as >others) researchers are able to obtain functionally useful knowledge >representations. I believe that these representation give us a peek at the >mental models resident in experts and novices in a number of domains. > >Jim McCarthy I agree with Jim (for roughly the same reason :-). I think we *can* make distinctions between different people's models, and that we must if we are going to understand how to conduct instruction and make useable systems (see also The Psychology Of Everyday Things, by Don Norman). Let me suggest another methodology I used for some mental model research I did in graduate school. Wanting detailed individual models, I used a shotgun approach. I had subjects make predictions in a situation. I then had them tell me why they believed what they had predicted. I also had them *draw* their idea of what was going on. (If their explicated model doesn't lead to the predictions they made, you must push them to revise the model). I also taped their comments for later comparison with their written responses and had them list their experience with the system I was examining. This technique proved very effective for determining what the subject's models were for what was going on in a small system. -- Clark Clark N. Quinn Learning Research and Development Center University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (412) 624-9581 quinn@unix.cis.pitt.edu
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (10/30/89)
In article <31966@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes: > It seems to me that you can find metaphors but you can't find > mental models. Is this my imagination? Please don't tell me > that a mental model is a bunch of metaphors. I was browsing > thru Donald Normans book "User Centered System Design" and > noticed that there is no index entry for metaphors, just for > mental models. So where have all the metaphors gone? Metaphors and symbolism are popular among writers. Parables are popular among clergymen, bards and healers. Analogies and mental models are popular among scientists and philosophers. You will find a lot of metaphors and symbolism, for example, in the charming children's stories of C. S. Lewis. --Barry Kort