“Outside” doesn’t have to include a random guy on the street. Cognitive science as a field is “outside”, and uses “mental model”.
Also, “I have a poor mental model of how to get to my destination” is, descriptively speaking, wrong usage of ‘poor mental model’; it’s inconsistent with the connotations of the phrase, which connotes an attempted understanding which is wrong. I don’t “have a poor mental model” of the study of anthropology; I just don’t know anything about it or have any motivation to learn. I do “have a poor mental model” of religious believers; my best attempts to place myself in the frame of reference of a believer do not explain their true behavior, so I know that my model is poor.
it’s inconsistent with the connotations of the phrase, which connotes an attempted understanding which is wrong
I suggested saying it in response to being given directions you don’t understand. If so, then you did indeed attempt to understand and couldn’t figure it out.
“Outside” doesn’t have to include a random guy on the street.
But there’s a gradation. Some phrases are used only by LWers. Some phrases are used by a slightly wider range of people, some by a slightly wider than that. Whether a phrase is jargon-like isn’t a yes/no thing; using a phrase which is used by cognitive scientists but which would not be understood by the man on the street, when there is another way of saying the same thing that would be understood by the man on the street, is most of the way towards being jargon, even if technically it’s not because cognitive scientists count as an outside group.
Furthermore, just because cognitive scientists know the phrase doesn’t mean they use it in conversation about subjects that are not cognitive science. I suspect that even cognitive scientists would, when asking each other for directions, not reply to incomprehensible directions by saying they have a poor mental model, unless they are making a joke or unless they are a character from the Big Bang Theory (and the Big Bang Theory is funny because most people don’t talk like that, and the few who do are considered socially inept.)
“Outside” doesn’t have to include a random guy on the street. Cognitive science as a field is “outside”, and uses “mental model”.
Also, “I have a poor mental model of how to get to my destination” is, descriptively speaking, wrong usage of ‘poor mental model’; it’s inconsistent with the connotations of the phrase, which connotes an attempted understanding which is wrong. I don’t “have a poor mental model” of the study of anthropology; I just don’t know anything about it or have any motivation to learn. I do “have a poor mental model” of religious believers; my best attempts to place myself in the frame of reference of a believer do not explain their true behavior, so I know that my model is poor.
I suggested saying it in response to being given directions you don’t understand. If so, then you did indeed attempt to understand and couldn’t figure it out.
But there’s a gradation. Some phrases are used only by LWers. Some phrases are used by a slightly wider range of people, some by a slightly wider than that. Whether a phrase is jargon-like isn’t a yes/no thing; using a phrase which is used by cognitive scientists but which would not be understood by the man on the street, when there is another way of saying the same thing that would be understood by the man on the street, is most of the way towards being jargon, even if technically it’s not because cognitive scientists count as an outside group.
Furthermore, just because cognitive scientists know the phrase doesn’t mean they use it in conversation about subjects that are not cognitive science. I suspect that even cognitive scientists would, when asking each other for directions, not reply to incomprehensible directions by saying they have a poor mental model, unless they are making a joke or unless they are a character from the Big Bang Theory (and the Big Bang Theory is funny because most people don’t talk like that, and the few who do are considered socially inept.)