Mental Models VIII (Limitations II)

“This is the greatest degree of impoverishment; the [mental] image, deprived little by little of its own characteristics, is nothing more than a shadow. […] Being dependent on the state of the brain, the image undergoes change like all living substance, - it is subject to gains and losses, especially losses. But each of the foregoing three classes has its use for the inventor. They serve as material for different kinds of imagination - in their concrete form, for the mechanic and the artist; in their schematic form, for the scientist and for others.” (Théodule-Armand Ribot, “Essay on the Creative Imagination”, 1900)

“It is by abstraction that one can separate movements, knowledge, and affectivity. And the analysis is, here, so far from being a real dismemberment that it is given only as probable. One can never effectively reduce an [mental] image to its elements, for the reason that an image, like all other psychic syntheses, is something more and different from the sum of its elements. […] We will always go from image to image. Comprehension is a movement which is never-ending, it is the reaction of the mind to an image by another image, to this one by another image and so on, in principle to infinity. “(Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Imaginary: A phenomenological psychology of the imagination”, 1940)

“Speaking without metaphor we have to declare that we are here faced with one of these typical antinomies caused by the fact that we have not yet succeeded in elaborating a fairly understandable outlook on the world without retiring our own mind, the producer of the world picture, from it, so that mind has no place in it. The attempt to press it into it, after all, necessarily produces some absurdities.” (Erwin Schrödinger, „Mind and Matter: the Tarner Lectures”, 1956)

“Mental models are fuzzy, incomplete, and imprecisely stated. Furthermore, within a single individual, mental models change with time, even during the flow of a single conversation. The human mind assembles a few relationships to fit the context of a discussion. As debate shifts, so do the mental models. Even when only a single topic is being discussed, each participant in a conversation employs a different mental model to interpret the subject. Fundamental assumptions differ but are never brought into the open. […] A mental model may be correct in structure and assumptions but, even so, the human mind - either individually or as a group consensus - is apt to draw the wrong implications for the future.” (Jay W Forrester, “Counterintuitive Behaviour of Social Systems”, Technology Review, 1971)

“At present, no complete account can be given - one may as well ask for an inventory of the entire products of the human imagination - and indeed such an account would be premature, since mental models are supposed to be in people's heads, and their exact constitution is an empirical question. Nevertheless, there are three immediate constraints on possible models. […] 1. The principle of computability: Mental models, and the machinery for constructing and interpreting them, are computable. […] 2. The principle of finitism: A mental model must be finite in size and cannot directly represent an infinite domain. […] 3. The principle of constructivism: A mental model is constructed from tokens arranged in a particular structure to represent a state of affairs.” (Philip Johnson-Laird, “Mental Models” 1983)

"Almost every aspect of our lives is shaped in some way by how we make sense of the world. Our thinking and our actions are affected by the mental models we hold. These models define our limits or open our opportunities. Despite their power and pervasiveness, these models are usually virtually invisible to us. We don't realize they are there at all.” (Robert Gunther et al, “The Power of Impossible Thinking: Transform the Business of Your Life and the Life of Your Business”, 2004)

“Humans have difficulty perceiving variables accurately […]. However, in general, they tend to have inaccurate perceptions of system states, including past, current, and future states. This is due, in part, to limited ‘mental models’ of the phenomena of interest in terms of both how things work and how to influence things. Consequently, people have difficulty determining the full implications of what is known, as well as considering future contingencies for potential systems states and the long-term value of addressing these contingencies. ” (William B. Rouse, “People and Organizations: Explorations of Human-Centered Design”, 2007)

“[…] we cannot accurately assess both what a mental model is and what it is becoming because the act of assessment affects the model.” (William B. Rouse, “People and Organizations: Explorations of Human-Centered Design”, 2007) [see Werner Heisenberg’s principle]

“Mental models are problematic because they typically operate unconsciously. This means that they influence behavior and structure thinking in ways that individuals do not recognize and therefore cannot easily articulate. This makes certain kinds of exploratory conversations difficult or impossible, and causes even reasonable propositions to be rejected out of hand.” (Kim Erwin, “Communicating The New: Methods to Shape and Accelerate Innovation”, 2013)

“A mental model is not necessarily founded on facts or complete understanding of reality. Let's be honest, most of our mental models are flawed in many ways, and that's perfectly normal. They work because they are fast and simple and not because they are a complete representation of the reality. […] The most important thing about a person's mental model is that it's simplified and very limited compared to what it models.” (Peter W Szabo, “User Experience Mapping”, 2017)

See also:
Mental Models VIII – More on their Limits
Mental Models I, II, III, V, VI, VII