Mental and Qualitative (AI) Models of Cardiac Electrophysiology: An Exploratory Study in Comparative Cognitive Science

Abstract

A key tenet in cognitive science is that intelligent systems require internal models of external phenomenon for purposes of prediction and control. In cognitive psychology the general notion of “mental models” is well established, although there is no universal agreement on how mental models can be characterised in detail (Gentner & Stevens 1983; Holland et al. 1986; Gilhooly 1987). In artificial intelligence (AI) the area of “qualitative modelling” is undergoing intensive investigation in a range of domains from naive physics to medical diagnosis (e.g., Kuipers 1986; Hunter et al. 1991). Qualitative models may be seen as complementary to the more established quantitative forms of computer modelling. Although qualitative models are less precise, they would seem much closer to human forms of thinking. Since mental models themselves are most plausibly assumed to be qualitative in character, there is a striking convergence of interest in qualitative modelling processes from the viewpoints of cognitive psychology and AI.