A descriptive study of mental models†

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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.