Understanding the simple complex system from different information representations: phase diagram and stock flow diagram

摘要

-The world is full of complexity. Better understanding of the complex system can help us to make better decisions. Thus, the way to show and understand complexity receives a lot of attention from researchers and teachers. In this study, we try to find out that phase diagram VS stock & flow diagram, which one is more helpful to understand a simple complex system.A simple model with only one stock is used in the experiment. Subjects without any system dynamics background are provided with full information but different representations. The experiment result shows that the ignorance of nonlinearity and feedback persists in all of the subjects. No matter what they are presented,phase diagram, stock & flow diagram, or both,their performances are statistically the same.