Mental models: Exploring how people think about heat flows in the home

Abstract

To achieve energy efficiency targets, the behaviour of building occupants is critical in counteracting or enhancing efficiency measures. Yet behaviour and decisions are construed through the lens of the mental models that occupants hold. We used a mental models methodology to extend previous research in order to elicit occupants' (N= 25) wider models around how they believe heat operates in their home. The research aim was to analyse the stories of heating, to reveal beliefs that occupants use when 'operating' their buildings. Twenty-five participants were asked to relate how they imagined (i) how their thermostat operated, (ii) how quickly their home heated up, (iii) where heat goes to when the heat source is switched off, (iv) how insulation works, (v) how heat flows around the home. We document the variety of mental models and specific features, e.g. how a high internal temperature can stem from a goal to feel warm fast, that when occupants use 'technical' vocabulary they may be imagining a different process from 'experts', how people use analogies such as wetsuits and weather patterns. We discuss the implications for energy efficiency. The stories of building users around how they operate their heating systems reveal assumptions that influence behaviour and can inform future communications.

The AM4I Architecture and Framework for Multimodal Interaction and Its Application to Smart Environments

“…The proposed architecture contemplates these aspects relying on contextual information from users and on fission, i.e., the ability of the system to make smart choices on how to better communicate content to the occupants. The approach instantiated in the AM4I framework is still very simple, both regarding the user and context models and adaptation, and the work needs to evolve to fully embrace the proposed view integrating, for instance, a model inspired in AdaptO [6] and contributions from the Social Sciences (e.g., mental models [83] and context and occupant behavior [84]). In this regard, occupant identification and location, useful in the context of adaptation, are, given the dynamic nature of smart environments, important and challenging features (as an example, see [85] for a recent review covering identification on multi-touch surfaces) that should, in our perspective, be treated with care, subject to the occupant’s explicit authorization, and not a major requirement for a natural adaptive interaction with the building, i.e., systems should not be designed around occupant identification, but benefit from it, if available.…”

Testing smarter control and feedback with users: Time, temperature and space in household heating preferences and practices in a Living Laboratory

“…have noted how heating practices in the UK are indeed intertwined with social norms which can include for example rules about how rooms are used, such as separate rooms for separate functions, leading to implications to both home design and space heating demand. Goodhew et al (2017) write about how heating itself is full of misperceptions and mental models that do not actually reflect sustainable heating options, or somewhat baffling conceptions of how heat flows in a home, or how a thermostat works. Royston (2014) adds that people develop very personal ways of managing heat in the home, including interactions with different practices and technologies that help them not only generate heat, but to move it around or even prevent its movement around.…”

Analysis of College Students’ Misconception on Geometrical Optics

“…Similarly, students experience the process of understanding a concept of physics. Sometimes students can understand correctly according to existing scientific concepts, but sometimes students have a different understanding of the existing scientific concepts and believe that their understanding is true even though it is not in accordance with scientific concepts [1]- [3]. Sometimes students are not stubborn in their belief in the concepts they understand, but they have other concepts that are different from the existing scientific concepts [4].…”