text: Criticisms Scientific debate continues about whether human reasoning is based on mental models, versus formal rules of inference (e.g., O'Brien, 2009), domain-specific rules of inference (e.g., Cheng & Holyoak, 2008; Cosmides, 2005), or probabilities (e.g., Oaksford and Chater, 2007). Many empirical comparisons of the different theories have been carried out (e.g., Oberauer, 2006).
  Mental models of dynamics systems: mental models in system dynamics
  Characteristics
  A mental model is generally:
  founded on unquantifiable, impugnable, obscure, or incomplete facts;
  flexible – considerably variable in positive as well as in negative sense;
  an information filter that causes selective perception, perception of only selected parts of information;
  very limited, compared with the complexities of the world, and even when a scientific model is extensive and in accordance with a certain reality in the derivation of logical consequences of it, it must take into account such restrictions as working memory; i.e., rules on the maximum number of elements that people are able to remember, gestaltisms or failure of the principles of logic, etc.;
  dependent on sources of information, which one cannot find anywhere else, are available at any time and can be used.
  Mental models are a fundamental way to understand organizational learning. Mental models, in popular science parlance, have been described as "deeply held images of thinking and acting". Mental models are so basic to understanding the world that people are hardly conscious of them.
  Expression of mental models of dynamic systems
  S.N. Groesser and M. Schaffernicht (2012) describe three basic methods which are typically used: