Mental models, cognitive maps, and the challenge of quantitative analysis of their network representations

Abstract

Cognitive maps, or mental maps, are externalized portrayals of mental models—people's mental representations of reality and their presumptions about how the world works. They are often used as the intermediary step toward uncovering individuals' presumptions of the outside world. Yet, the next step is often vague: once one's understanding of the real world is mapped, how can we systematically evaluate the maps and compare and contrast them? In this note, we review several common approaches to analyzing cognitive maps, some rooted in network theories, and apply them to a dataset of 30 graduate students who analyzed a complex socioenvironmental problem. Our analysis shows that these methods provide inconsistent results and often fall short of capturing variations in mental models. The analysis points to a lack of effective methods for examining such maps and helps articulate a major research problem for systems‐thinking scholars. © 2023 System Dynamics Society.

Generative agent‐based modeling: an introduction and tutorial

“…This example demonstrates that a GABM can be used for both qualitative and quantitative analysis in the study of norm diffusion dynamics, and it can be applied to a wide range of social system problems. This offers the opportunity to understand the reasons behind changing trends and understand individuals' shared or differing mental models (Haque et al ., 2023). Additionally, it offers the possibility to examine the decision‐making and reasoning patterns of individuals over time.…”

“…shared or differing mental models (Haque et al, 2023). Additionally, it offers the possibility to examine the decision-making and reasoning patterns of individuals over time.…”

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“…Third, the bot helps systems thinking scholars map and analyze mental models of individuals more efficiently. This has been one of the main challenges of studies analyzing complexity comprehension and systems thinking skills (Davis et al ., 2020; Haque et al ., 2023). Fourth, the program can be further developed to merge multiple sources and create one CLD that synthesizes different opinions or findings.…”

“…Any discrepancies were resolved through collaborative case reviews. Then they used the codes to manually develop causal maps for each individual response (Haque et al ., 2023).…”