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Mental Moves #6: Mental Models and the Attachance of Multiple Moves

Oliver Ding
CALL4
Published in
18 min readJun 12, 2023

The Movement of Connection

This post is part of the Mental Moves knowledge project that aims to collect related articles about the concept of “Attachance” and more examples about “Moving between Thematic Spaces” in order to edit a book. You can find more details in the following links:

I coined the term Attachance by combining Attach and Chance in 2018 to discuss some ideas related to Affordance, a core idea of Ecological Psychology.

In 2022, the development of Attachance was tied to the development of Thematic Space which refers to a specific type of container: cognitive container. You can find more details in [Slow Cognition] The Development of the concept of “Thematic Spaces”.

On March 10, 2023, I wrote a short post about the development of “Attachance” on Linkedin. On March 24, 2023, I collected a set of articles about the concept of “Attachance” and “Moving between Thematic Spaces”.

The Concept of Attachance (A list of articles)

I coined the term Attachance by combining Attach and Chance in 2018 to discuss some ideas related to Affordance, a core…

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I also launched a board for the Mental Moves knowledge project on Milanote.

I adopted Dean Keith Simonton’s Chance-configuration theory as the foundation and expanded his theory to a new model. You can find the basic model here.

“Mental Models” and “Frame for Work”

This article aims to introduce two new terms for the Mental Moves knowledge project: “Mental Models” and “Frame for Work”. The diagram below represents a context for these two terms.

I will offer more details about the above diagram in the following sections.

I also want to use this example to discuss a special topic: the Attachance of Multiple Moves and the Movement of Connection.

Knowledge Frameworks and Projects

In the previous article, I used the diagram below to discuss the relationship between Mental Elements and Projects. The diagram below is a simple exploration. I use “main character” and “side character” to define the importance of mental elements in a particular project.

This exploration inspired me to detach my focus from Mental Elements and attach my focus to Projects.

A new topic emerges from this attachance:

How do multiple moves of mental elements impact the development of projects?

It also leads to a related topic:

What’s the relationship between Mental Elements, Knowledge Frameworks, and Projects?

In the previous discussions, I used Knowledge Frameworks and Projects to explain Thematic Spaces:

  • If a knowledge framework describes several thematic spaces, then it can be used as a map for moving mental elements.
  • Each project has a large thematic space because a particular project defines a particular cognitive container.

I didn’t build a direct connection between Knowledge Frameworks and Projects.

Today I am going to introduce a new term called “Mental Models” to build such a connection.

From Mental Elements to Mental Models

Some authors use “Mental Models” and “Knowledge Frameworks” interchangeably. I didn’t use “Mental Models” in my articles. However, I used “Abstract Models” and “Concrete Models” for the HERO U framework and I used them to describe two types of knowledge frameworks.

For the “Mental Moves” knowledge project, I decided to make a distinction between “Knowledge Frameworks” and “Mental Models”:

  • Knowledge Frameworks: public objective knowledge
  • Mental Models: private subjective knowledge

If we accept this distinction, we see a mediation between Knowledge Frameworks and a Project. See the diagram below.

The term “Mediation” can be understood from the perspective of Activity Theory. Lew Vygotsky claimed that human action and psychological functions are mediated by tools which refer to technical tools that work on objects and psychological tools that mediate the mind and environment.

A person has to learn and understand a knowledge framework in order to use it as a psychological tool for his/her projects. The learned knowledge framework is a mental model which is part of the person’s mind.

Why do we need this distinction? Because we can’t ignore at least the following four facts:

  • The learned knowledge framework maybe not be the actual knowledge framework.
  • A person also can curate several learned knowledge frameworks together and turn them into a new mental model.
  • A person also can detach several knowledge elements from some knowledge framework and attach them to some mental models.
  • A person also can invent his/her own mental models without adopting anything from others’ knowledge frameworks.

Since the difference between Knowledge Frameworks and Mental Models is large, I believe the distinction is needed for the Mental Moves knowledge project.

In Creative Action: The Chance-configuration Theory and Beyond, I introduced Dean Keith Simonton’s chance-configuration theory. See the diagram below:

Dean Keith Simonton’s theory is built with the following similar ideas:

  • The chance permutation of mental elements
  • The formation of configurations
  • The communication, social acceptance, and sociocultural preservation of those configurations.

The third idea is not relevant to the present discussion, we will focus on the first idea and the second idea.

Why does Dean Keith Simonton choose the term permutation, not the term combination? He wants to emphasize how selected mental elements are arranged. However, the term combination only considers sets of elements that have no particular order.

How do we decide which chance permutations can or should be retained? According to Dean Keith Simonton, “the primary selection procedure is predicated on the fact that chance permutations vary appreciably in stability.” (p.8)

  • These unstable permutations we may call mental aggregates.
  • These stable permutations are labeled with configurations.

Simonton didn’t use “Mental Models” for his theory. Simonton’s theory is about scientific creativity, so Configurations are final outcome of scientists’ creation.

For the Mental Moves project, I claim that some configurations can be called Mental Models if they are used to guide actions. It is clear that my approach is more about the “mind—action” relationship.

We should notice that the notion of a “mental model” is an important concept of contemporary cognitive science. According to Nancy J. Nersessian, “Research within the mental models framework is so extensive and varied that an inventory is not possible…However, a consensus view has not developed among these areas of research. The preponderance of research into mental models has been involved with specifying the content and structure of long-term memory models in a specific domain or with respect to specific reasoning tasks or levels of expertise, and not with addressing the more foundational questions raised above. Most importantly, clarification is needed on basic issues as to the nature of the format of the model and the processing involved in using a model.” (Creating Scientific Concepts, 2008, pp.94–95)

The distinction between “Knowledge Frameworks” and “Mental Models” is also inspired by the “Internalization — externalization” principle of Activity Theory.

Learn and Share

Activity Theory or the “Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT)” is an interdisciplinary philosophical framework for studying both individual and social aspects of human behavior.

Researchers have been adopting Activity Theory as a descriptional and orientational framework for analysis and evaluation in a variety of empirical studies. Some researchers also developed practical tools for connecting Activity Theory and empirical studies, for example, the Activity Checklist (Kaptelinin, Nardi, and Macaulay 1999).

According to Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006), there are five basic principles of Activity Theory:

  • Object-orientedness
  • Tool mediation
  • Internalization — externalization
  • The hierarchical structure of activity, and
  • Development

The “Share—Learn” interactions between Knowledge Frameworks and Mental Models echo the “Internalization — externalization” principle. See the diagram below.

A person learns a knowledge framework and captures it as a mental model of his/her mind. We can refer to this as the process of Internalization. If the person shares a mental model with others, we can consider it as the process of Externalization.

In 2022, I developed the Knowledge Discovery Canvas for developing Tacit Knowledge and wrote a book about it. The canvas is divided into Inner Space and Outer Space. While Outer Space refers to Objective Facts, Inner Space refers to Subjective Experiences. In this way, the activity of developing Tacit Knowledge means the activity of Objective — Subjective knowledge curation.

I used “Frameworks — Insights” for the above canvas. We can consider Mental Models as a sub-category of Insights because other Insights could be just several Mental Elements. Sometimes, you only capture some ideas from a knowledge framework without understanding the whole framework.

Mental Models and Project

Now let’s talk about the relationship between Mental Models and a Project. See the diagram below.

A Project can be seen as a collection of a series of actions. How do these actions form a Project? The answer is the following three elements of a project:

  • Objectives: the goals of a project
  • Objects: the things people are working on
  • Mental Models: the plan or knowledge for predicting the development of the project

The above diagram connects Mental Models with a Project. In this manner, Mental Models are functioning as Predictive Models of Projects.

The term “Predictive Models” is an important element of the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework.

The “Anticipatory Activity System (AAS)” framework adopts Activity Theory and Anticipatory System theory to discuss “Self, Other, Present, Future”. You can find more details here.

According to Robert Rosen, the creator of the Anticipatory System theory, “An anticipatory system is a natural system that contains an internal predictive model of itself and of its environment, which allows it to change state at an instant in accord with the model’s predictions pertaining to a later instant.” In contrast, a reactive system only reacts, in the present, to changes that have already occurred in the causal chain, while an anticipatory system’s present behavior involves aspects of the past, present, and future.

The core idea is the “internal predictive model” that can predict the Self and Environment. The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework defines two types of predictive models:

  • General Predictive Model: a person’s mind and knowledge
  • Particular Predictive Models: a particular mental model (learned or curated frameworks) for predicting the future of a project.

In 2022, I worked on developing the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework. What I learned about the concept of “Predictive Model” from my empirical research is the framework below:

For a particular project, a person will develop a particular model to help her model the development of the project. In other words, she will use a model to predict the future of the project.

The model can be explicit, such as a diagram with a document. However, the model can be tacit, the person just uses her mind without any instruments to display the model. What I found from my empirical research is that sometimes the person would like to visualize or write her model about the project because this way is a great way of thinking. But the person would like to keep the model as a private information, unless the project needs the public versin of the model for storytelling.

The model is the outcome of the “objective—subjective” knowledge curation. For example, a friend of mine adopts some psychological knowledge and the OKR method to build a model and use the model to develop her life development program. She modified her model several times in order to match the change of her clients.

The above framework identifies three types of Sources of Knowledge: “Self, Other, and Public”. For example, I am her advisor. My ideas are considered as Other.

The other aspect of modeling a project is the Context of Communication. The person should write, say, draw, or take any action about the model. In this way, she could turn the model from “tacit knowledge” into “explicit knowledge”. The Context can be Mind Only (pure tacit knowledge), Private (written or drawn, not shared), or Shared (with others).

For more details about Modeling A Developmental Project, see here. You can also find more details about Predictive Model in Life Discovery: The Predictive Model and Anticipatory Activity System.

What’s the relationship between Projects and the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework?

An Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) has two parts: First-order Activity and Second-order Activity. A project can be a concrete First-order Activity or a concrete Second-order Activity.

In other words, the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework is used to curate a series of Projects into a meaningful whole.

Predict and Adjust

The mutual relationship between Mental Models (Predictive Models) and a Project is dynamic. As mentioned above, a friend of mine always modified her models for her three-month life development program. Within 12 months, she updated her program and adjusted the model.

The “Predict — Adjust” interactions echo the “Learn — Share” interactions. While the former is about mental moves between “Knowledge” and “Wisdom”, the latter is about mental moves between “Wisdom” and “Activity”.

If we put the above discussion together, we can see the “Knowledge — Wisdom — Activity” schema of mental moves behind the diagram.

Frame for Work

The above discussion also connects to a theme called “Frame for Work”.

The possible theme “Frame for Work” was born on Jan 30, 2023.

It is a by-product of a thematic conversation about “Strategic Exploration”.

I used “a possible configuration of a theme network” to describe the structure of the things inside the thematic space. Moreover, I developed the notion of “Ecological Formism” with the following distinction:

  • Possible: many possible configurations of a theme network
  • Actual: a particular configuration of a theme network
  • Representation: a diagram of a particular configuration

This is a major outcome of the project from my perspective. On Jan 30, 2023, I realized that the further task is to develop a new ontology of knowledge frameworks after publishing the post about the Field of Meta-learning (v1.0).

In order to remember this significant insight, I made a cover image and used “Frame for Work” as a new possible theme.

Originally, the primary focus of the theme “Frame for Work” is the notion of “Ecological Formism”.

Now we can expand the theme to a project by incorporating the above discussion. See the diagram below.

The above diagram uses a schema called “Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics” to build a model of the “Frame for Work” project.

The “Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics” schema is adopted from Ping Keung Lui’s theoretical sociology.

The structure of Lui’s theoretical sociology is a nested structure. See the diagram below. According to Lui, “The realism comprises a subjectivist structuralism and an objectivist stock of knowledge, while the hermeneutics is an interpretation and an analysis. Second, I shall present an ontology that nests the realism within its boundaries.” (p.250, 2016, Aspects of Sociological Explanation)

Source: Aspects of Sociological Explanation (Ping-keung Lui 2016, p.251)

We should see this grand theory as a dialogue between philosophy and sociology because “Ontology” and “hermeneutics” are respectable terms in philosophy, but “realism” — sandwiched between them — is not. Lui emphasizes that Realism is the sociological matter proper (p.251, 2016, Aspects of Sociological Explanation).

I have used the nested structure as a frame of reference to curate some frameworks for the Creative Life Curation project. You can find more details in Mental Moves #4: Attachance and Creative Dialogue.

Mapping Multiple Moves

In order to reflect on the above discussion, I developed a new map for Mapping Multiple Moves. See the example below.

The map is inspired by the “THEORY — PRACTICE” Connection between the Knowledge Discovery Canvas. You can find three major areas in the above diagram:

  • Theory/Concepts
  • Mental Elements
  • Projects/Actions

Let’s start from the middle area: Mental Elements.

I roughly use a formula to define a knowledge framework: a diagram + a set of concepts = a framework. The above diagram is a real example of this formula.

The “dot and circle” diagram was detached from the “Product Speech” model which is part of the Product Langue project. See the original diagram of the “Product Speech” model.

You can find more details in TALE: Product, Langue, and Speech.

On May 2, 2023, I wrote an article and discuss the notion of “Thematic Space and Framework”. I used the “dot and circle” diagram again. See the diagram below.

… I often associated the concept of “Attachance” with my works of developing knowledge frameworks. I always identified thematic spaces within a particular knowledge framework and emphasized the Attachance of moving between thematic spaces. I also encouraged people to take the attachance of moving between different knowledge frameworks.

As mentioned above, the development of Attachance was tied to the development of Thematic Space in 2022. This morning, I realized that the development of Thematic Space was tied to my work of developing knowledge frameworks.

You can find more details in Mental Moves #3: Attachance, Thematic Space, and Framework.

On June 9, 2023, I reflected on Mental Moves #3: Attachance, Thematic Space, and Framework (The “Thematic Space and Framework” case study) and Mental Moves #5: The Attachance of Rediscovery and Diagram Development (The “ARCH” case study) and started thinking the relationship between Frameworks and Projects. Finally, I used the “dot and circle” diagram to make a new model.

The new model is very simple. The only new thing in my mind is the concept of “Mental Models”. The above discussion has mentioned several related ideas. We can also see them in a network. See the diagram below.

Though the concept of “Mental Models” is the primary object of this case. We need to pay attention to a mental element called [a distinction between “Knowledge Frameworks” and “Mental Models”]. In other words, I started with the “Knowledge Frameworks” concept and divided it into two concepts. This action was guided by two theoretical ideas:

  • Curativity Theory > The Objective — Subjective knowledge curation
  • Activity Theory > The “Internalization — Externalization” Principle

In this case, the meaning of “Mental Models” is defined by 1) [a distinction between “Knowledge Frameworks” and “Mental Models”], and 2) The meaning of “Knowledge Frameworks”. The “Distinction” is a significant mental element because it defined other mental elements.

Making a distinction between two concepts is a great strategy to develop a concept system. I did the same thing in 2021 when I was writing the book Project-oriented Activity Theory. See the diagram below.

It is clear that Blunden distinguishes between the pre-concept status and the concept status. In order to better present his statement, I define the pre-concept as the “Idea” process. Let’s apply the germ-cell diagram to discuss this process.

Process 1: Idea
Tendency 1: Problem
Tendency 2: Solution
Orientation 1: Propose
Process 2: Concept

… While the pre-concept status (Idea) is associated with the individual mind, the Concept status associates with collective collaboration.

In fact, the distinction was made by Andy Blunden. I only gave a new name (Idea) to “the pre-concept status”. You find more details in Activity U (VIIII): Project-oriented Activity Theory.

The above diagram represents the process of developing a model for the “Frame for Work” project. From the discussion about the framework of “Framework — Model — Project”, I discovered a deep theme: the “Knowledge — Wisdom — Activity” schema.

The “Predict — Adjust” interactions echo the “Learn — Share” interactions. While the former is about mental moves between “Knowledge” and “Wisdom”, the latter is about mental moves between “Wisdom” and “Activity”.

If we put the above discussion together, we can see the “Knowledge — Wisdom — Activity” schema of mental moves behind the diagram.

Finally, I adopted the “Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics” schema from Ping Keung Lui’s theoretical sociology to curate the above three mental elements together.

The final model led to a possible project called “Frame for Work”.

Now we can move to discuss projects and actions. There are several projects behind this movement of multiple moves. I used “the movement of connection” to describe the immediate connections between a set of projects.

In a particular movement of connection, some projects only contribute mental elements without any taking actions. Other projects take action and produce outcomes.

In this case, the main projects are the “Mental Moves” project and the “Frame for Work” project. See the above diagram. They have different actions and outcomes:

The Mental Moves Project

  • Action: Conduct the Multiple Moves cast study (and write this article)
  • Outcome: A framework of “Framework — Model — Project” (and this article)

The Frame for Work Project

  • Action: Define a possible project about “Frame for Work”
  • Outcome: A model of the “Frame for Work” project

If we consider the Mental Moves project as the host of the movement of connection, then we can see the model of the “Frame for Work” project as a by-product.

Kinds of Mental Elements

From the above process of mapping multiple moves, we can find different functions of mental elements in a movement of connection.

  • Concepts (or themes)
  • Diagrams
  • Frameworks
  • Primary Objects
  • Secondary Objects
  • Principles
  • References
  • Product
  • By-product

Let’s see examples from the above case study.

  • Concepts: “Knowledge Frameworks”, “Mental Models”, “Project”, “Ecological Formism”, “Predictive Models”, “The Frameworks — Insights Mapping”
  • Diagrams: The “dot and circle” diagram
  • Frameworks: A Framework of “Framework — Model — Project”, The model of “Frame for Work”
  • Primary Objects: The concept of “Mental Models”, the model of “Frame for Work” framework
  • Secondary Objects: “Knowledge Frameworks”, “Project”, “Ecological Formism”
  • Principles: A distinction between “Knowledge Frameworks” and “Mental Models”
  • References: The Frameworks — Insights Mapping, “Predictive Models”
  • Product: A Framework of “Framework — Model — Project”
  • By-product: A model of the “Frame for Work” project

In the above diagram, I used “concepts” to name some ideas I adopted from some theoretical knowledge. In fact, we can call these ideas “Knowledge Elements” and “Mental Elements” too.

As “Knowledge Elements”, these ideas are part of some theoretical knowledge. After learning these ideas, I turned them into my “Mental Elements”.

For the movement of connection, we can consider these ideas as References.

References

Creative Process
Creativity
Creative Cognition
Ideas
Insights

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Oliver Ding
CALL4

Written by Oliver Ding

876 Followers
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Founder of CALL(Creative Action Learning Lab), information architect, knowledge curator.