There is lots of research on this. I would start with a nice little paper by my own supervisor, Stephen Payne:
Payne, S. J. (1991) A descriptive study of mental models. Behaviour and Information Technology, 10 (1),3-21 Plus he has a chapter in the book HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks by John Carroll (might be worth reading the rest of this) called "Mental models: the very ideas" You could go back further and read the seminal works too. Two books were published in 1984, one by Johnson-Laird and the other by Gentner and Stevens both titled, "Mental Models" as you're doing doctoral research. There are more concise summaries that may tell you all you need to know but it is better to go to the primary source if you can. I understand that someone else recently published a book under the same title/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=40032 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help