1002 AMERICAN A N T H R OPOL OGIST [85, 19831

This small volume, though not easy reading with minimum content. So perhaps have
despite the generally excellent prose, is essentialresearch strategies in psychology that empha-
for historians of anthropology, and I look for- sized forms of thought (e.g., modes of classifica-
ward to seeing the promised full biography. tion or the structuring of memory activity) to
the impoverishment of content (there is some-
thing inescapably noncrucial about the big red
Mental Models. Dedre Gentner and Albert L. triangle and the nonsense syllable). The rich
Stevens, eds. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence content of the papers in this book reveals an
Erlbaum, 1983. 340 pp. $29.95 (cloth). abundance of complex knowledge about physics
and certain types of machines. Though the
Willett Kempton complex knowledge comes more often from the
Michigan State University researcher than from the people whose mental
Jean Lave models are being studied or theorized about, at
University of California, Irvine the very least they stand as a reminder that a
deep understanding of the subject is a pre-
There is an increasing community of interests requisite for studying anybody or everybody’s
among cognitive psychology, artificial intelli- understandings- the target phenomena are not
gence, and cognitive anthropology. Many of the simple nor do peoples’ models make sense if the
commonalities - and differences as well - are subject matter is only superficially understood.
reflected in this collection of 14 papers. Each Multiple models are a hallmark of these
paper tries to describe human understanding of analyses. Sometimes they distinguish novice
some domain, using new concepts in cognitive from expert conceptualizations of some
science. In this review we concentrate on issues knowledge domain (e.g., Larkin; Greeno; see
most relevant to anthropology. Thus we shall also the critical discussion by Wiser and Carey).
not discuss those few papers that deal primarily Di Sessa speculates that part of learning physics
with the behavior of computer programs. is a transformation of basic concepts, and gives
Anthropological study of cognition has con- a fascinating example of a shift from charac-
centrated on classification- the assignment of terizing objects according to the concept of
items to a category, and the association of a lex- rigidity, to the concept of springiness. Greeno
ical item with that category. The studies in this also addresses the role of different conceptual
volume, like some exploratory studies in anthro- entities in facilitating or hindering problem
pology, go beyond categories and deal with solving. Young, discussing mental models of
phenomena with multiple interacting parts, not calculators, illustrates the way differently orga-
necessarily all lexicalized, and show that infor- nized devices (three kinds of calculators) lead
mants construct explanations and predictions users to different mental models. In turn, these
about these domains in a way that would not be models lead to different types of calculation er-
relevant for simple categories. rors. Williams, Hollan, and Stevens describe the
One example of a mental model is Gentner process by which one subject develops a se-
and Gentner’s description of analogies used in quence of mental models about the functioning
understanding. For example, people think of a heat exchanger. They argue that “the sub-
about electrical circuits using the analogy of ject appears to take two incomplete and inac-
water flowing through a pipe, or they think curate models and merge them into a successful
about the atom using the analogy of the solar reasoning device” (p. 150). Multiple models are
system. Although these analogies are not “cor- useful because “the resulting dialectic between
rect” models of what really happens in an elec- these two models provides more power than
trical circuit or in an atom. they are useful for either model alone” (p. 150).
thinking about circuits and atoms because peo- Gentner and Gentner describe multiple
ple understand an unfamiliar and “invisible” models of electrical circuits, the one mentioned
domain in terms of one that is familiar, more previously of water flowing in a pipe. and a sec-
visualizable, and simpler. Analogies are produc- ond in which electric current is conceptualized
tive because people can reason about an as a moving crowd of lemmings. By presenting
analogical domain, and then translate their in- electric-circuit problems, they demonstrate that
ferences into the more complex domain of in- consistent users of either model have a pattern
terest. of strengths and errors corresponding to the
Early cognitive anthropology bred a reaction analogic model used. They do not here analyze
against the limitations of maximum formality model use by subjects who used more than one
 GENERA L/THEORETICAL
(the majority): and the analysis is focused on
patterns of results rather than the processes
generating them. The generative character of
analogic reasoning is demonstrated while the
activity that generates the analogies and their
application is not addressed.
DeKleer and Brown’s work on mechanical
devices convincingly demonstrates that it is not
simple for people to construct an adequate
causal model of the functioning of a device
based on knowledge of its structure. Their goal
is to explore the nature of complete models
rather than to account for their use. But they
also speculate that their theory of mental
models may have implications for the “em-
pirical psychologist .” Thus they suggest that
troubleshooting would proceed through their
modeling process backwards - the troubleshoot-
er trying to infer the structure of a device from
its function. But they fail to describe a scenario
in which a troubleshooter might plausibly
operate. More generally, they seem uncertain of
what kind of person, in what circumstances,
would hold the mental model they discuss.
Thus, in three successive paragraphs (p. 186)
they shift from “the learner” to “the human
[who] appears to use” to the “subject” without
comment on the changing social circumstances
and goals of learners, users, and experimental
subjects. The result is a too-abstract discussion
of learning in which experiential knowledge is
seen as an impediment to inferring function
from structure (p. 184) and it is suggested that
the apparently multiple models of the learner/
user/subject might be an artifact of how the
complexities of a single modeling process are
reported.
The work of deKleer and Brown is used in
other papers in the volume. Indeed Williams,
Hollan, and Stevens succeed in exploring its im-
plications for what someone actually does. This
is interesting precisely because the analysis is
firmly located in a particular situation - an ex-
perimenter interviewing one subject about his
understanding of a heat exchanger device. They
find that “there is an array of activities present
in the subject’s protocol which fall outside of
what we term mental-model reasoning. These
include not only the invention, set up, and
debugging of the mental models, but also the
management of multiple models, the use of ex-
periential knowledge, and the use of other
forms of reasoning such as constraint argu-
ments” (p. 147). They also suggest that people
may use different mental models for different
purposes; in addition to inferring how physical
1003
systems behave, they are used for explaining
and justifying explanations and as mnemonic
devices to facilitate remembering.
Any anthropologist worth their salt will
quickly notice a bias that cuts across most (but
not all) of the papers in this volume: there is one
correct, normative, or scientific model, and folk
models are considered incomplete or wrong. As
described in Norman’s overview, the models in-
vented by “teachers, designers, scientists, and
engineers . . . provide an appropriate represen-
tation of the target system, appropriate in the
sense of being accurate, consistent, and com-
plete” (p. 7). This bias is understandable given
that many of the authors are studying training
problems or equipment operating errors. How-
ever, as a result most papers contrast novices
and experts as if there existed two basic social
categories of knowers, and the “novices” are ap-
prentices whose primary goal is to master the ex-
pert’s knowledge domain. Surely this is an ideal-
ized and distorted representation of the circum-
stances in which mental models are learned and
used. This representation leads to further
assumptions: that the learner wants to learn the
expert model, and that the model presently held
may be considered useful only as a transitional
one, or detrimental, blocking acquisition of the
expert model.
As anthropologists we see similarities between
the studies which judge folk theory from the ex-
pert’s perspective, and the common ethnocen-
tric practice of testing people on tasks irrelevant
to their culture. For example, three separate
papers (McCloskey, Clement, and diSessa)
describe students’ models of physical motion us-
ing both pencil-and-paper tests, and tasks re-
quiring them to manipulate objects in artificial
situations. Students make systematic errors,
which are less frequent but still common after
taking physics, and these authors (like Larkin)
infer that the errors are due to a “naive theory”
or “preconceptions” of physical motion that the
student held prior to classroom instruction.
Although their evidence for the existence of
“naive theory” is convincing, as anthropologists
we believe such theory must work in the situa-
tions where it is normally applied. After all,
people get along very well with motion in daily
activities.
Novices (within an organization) and folks
(organizing their activities and knowledge in
terms of their own daily concerns) bear quite
different relations with the expert or expert
knowledge. But the point is not simply to add a
third category, “folk experts.” to this simplified
1004 AMERICAN A N T H R 0POL OGIS T
social world of knowledge users. Rather, we sug-
gest that the categories “expert” and “novice,”
the attributes and organization of these roles in
this society, presuppose what is called a profes-
sion: further, it is probably only in relation to
professions that it is possible to conceive of a
“knowledge domain.” It is not just people, but
also knowledge that is socially organized. Herein
lie some interesting problems for future
research.
Only Hutchins, an anthropologist, and Wiser
and Carey, in a historical analysis, call for
studies of how people actually use their theories.
Hutchins provides an extensive example: Micro-
nesian navigation seems cumbersome and
wrong when viewed from the perspective of
Western navigation, yet it passes “the stern test
of landfall” with flying colors. Other papers,
however, will compel anthropologically oriented
readers to ask, “How are these folk models nor-
mally used? What are informants’ own goals in
this task? T o what types of problems are they
usually applied? What was missing from the ex-
perimental situations which subjects would
otherwise have used to solve the problem? And
would this type of problem ever really come up
in daily life?
[85, 19831
Although we have criticized the evaluation of
folk models from the expert’s perspective, some
of the essays offer a needed corrective to a naive
cultural relativity that distorts some anthro-
pological analyses. We come away from this
book convinced that sometimes folk models are,
in their own terms, wrong. That is, in some
cases people do fail at routine tasks because of
limitations in their mental models (Young:
Williams, Hollan, and Stevens). How can we
distinguish ethnocentric (or profession-centric)
biases from legitimate problems with folk
models? The crucial question here is “are the
models being evaluated in terms of the goals of
their users?” The anthropological dictum to see
the logic of the natives’ system should not,
however, prevent us from seeing that in some
cases folk models could be improved as a result
of the kind of analysis demonstrated in this
book.
NOTES
Acknowledgments. We thank Mary Brenner.
Olivia de la Rocha, and Michael Murtaugh for
their contributions to this review.