Abstract:The mental models that participants had about the common technological device of a computer were examined in 1999 and 2009. The participants were prompted with the question "What is like a computer?" in order to generate analogies that were used to access their mental models. Results indicated that more analogies were generated in 1999 rather than 2009. In addition there was a reduction in the amount of analogies generated by males. The top popular analogies produced in 1999 and 2009 were found to be different… Show more
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