Mental Models in Human Computer Interaction: Research Issues about What the User of Software Knows

摘要

Discovering what the users of a computer software system do know and should know are important goals in current research on human-computer interaction. The study of knowledge representations of users of computer-based systems affords an opportunity to explore both the theoretical base of behavior as well as specific behaviors in tasks that involve many different cognitive processes in concert. Because a number of researchers are concerned with mental representations and because this topic has an impact on cognitive psychology and software human factors, there is an emerging need to clarify the concepts underlying knowledge representation and mental models as they apply to human-computer interaction. The paper fills this need by reviewing relevant current research and presents a preliminary framework of the kinds of mental representations of procedures people might have.