Mental model

A mental model is an internal representation of how a system, situation, or process works. It helps people explain events, predict outcomes, and choose actions.

Cognitive map: An internal representation of spatial relationships among places or objects. It is a mental model specialized for navigating and reasoning about spatial environments.
User interface design: The design of interactive systems through which people control software or devices. Interfaces work better when their controls and feedback fit users' expectations of how they operate.
Scientific model: A simplified representation of a system used to describe, explain, or predict phenomena. Scientific models are evaluated and shared explicitly; personal mental models may remain implicit and idiosyncratic.
Kenneth Craik: A Scottish philosopher and psychologist who proposed that thought uses internal models of external reality. His 1943 account helped establish mental models as a framework for explaining prediction and reasoning.
Schema (psychology): An organized framework of prior knowledge that guides perception, memory, and interpretation. Schemas structure the expectations and assumptions that mental models draw on.
Learning: A process through which experience or instruction produces relatively lasting changes in knowledge or behavior. Learning reshapes mental models as new evidence and explanations are incorporated.
System dynamics: A method for modeling how feedback and delays shape the behavior of complex systems over time. Its formal feedback structures can expose dynamics that an intuitive mental model overlooks.
The Nature of Explanation: Kenneth Craik's 1943 book arguing that thought operates through internal models of the world. It gave an early, influential formulation of the idea behind mental models.
Predictive processing: A theory that the brain continually generates predictions and updates them using sensory evidence. It explains how internal models can guide perception and change when predictions fail.
Transfer of learning: The application of knowledge or skills learned in one context to a different context. A useful mental model lets knowledge guide action beyond the situation where it was learned.

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