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What you should be aware of is that there are some things that are "expensive" regarding our cognition. One of thiese things is learning new things and getting them into our long-term memory e.g. how you do a certain action in a program. An other is keeping things in short term memory. An example for this would be to remember which function you triggered previously or which item you copied into the clipboard. | What you should be aware of is that there are some things that are "expensive" regarding our cognition. One of thiese things is learning new things and getting them into our long-term memory e.g. how you do a certain action in a program. An other is keeping things in short term memory. An example for this would be to remember which function you triggered previously or which item you copied into the clipboard. | ||
==Mental Models== | ==Mental Models== | ||
[[File:Honeywell_round_thermostat.jpg|200px|thumb|thermostat]] | |||
[[File:Warmwasserheizung.jpg|200px|thumb|This works like you think]] | |||
The way real world things work is represented in our mind as a so-called mental model. The whole world with all its properties can't get in our mind. It would be too much data and what we percieve is heavily filtered anyway by our senses. | The way real world things work is represented in our mind as a so-called mental model. The whole world with all its properties can't get in our mind. It would be too much data and what we percieve is heavily filtered anyway by our senses. | ||
A "good" mental model maintains - despite of the reduction of the real thing - the things that are relevant for the way we deal with the thing the mental model represents. | A "good" mental model maintains - despite of the reduction of the real thing - the things that are relevant for the way we deal with the thing the mental model represents. | ||
Lets take an example: The mental model about what the depicted controls do is the same for the most people. The mental model derives from the way the controls looks like and which effect turning them will have. Truning them more makes the room eventually hotter. Because they are turned we suspect a kind of valve working behind of them: turn more increases some kind of opening that allows more heat to flow through. | Lets take an example: The mental model about what the depicted controls do is the same for the most people. The mental model derives from the way the controls looks like and which effect turning them will have. Truning them more makes the room eventually hotter. Because they are turned we suspect a kind of valve working behind of them: turn more increases some kind of opening that allows more heat to flow through. | ||