Editing Mental model (section)

===Characteristics===
A mental model is generally:
* founded on unquantifiable, impugnable, obscure, or incomplete facts;
* [[Cognitive flexibility|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 modelling|scientific model]] is extensive and in accordance with a certain [[reality]] in the derivation of [[logical consequence]]s 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, [[gestaltism]]s 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.<ref name="SUSM2004">{{cite web |url=http://proverbs.cz/media/art/SM_ST.pdf |author=Šusta, Marek |title=Několik slov o systémové dynamice a systémovém myšlení |pages=3–9 |publisher=Proverbs, a.s. |language=cs |access-date= 2009-01-15}}</ref><ref name="mild2003">{{cite book |author=Mildeova, S., Vojtko V. |title=Systémová dynamika |year=2003 |isbn=978-80-245-0626-5 |publisher=Oeconomica |location=Prague |pages=19–24 |language=cs}}</ref><ref name="forste1997">{{cite web |url=http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/ford_sterman_elicit_1.pdf |author=Ford, David N., Sterman, John D. |title=Expert Knowledge Elicitation to Improve Mental and Formal Models |publisher=Cambridge, Massachusetts, US - Massachusetts Institute of Technology |pages=18–23 |access-date=2009-01-11}}</ref>

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".<ref>"Leading for a Change", Ralph Jacobson, 2000, Chapter 5, Page102</ref> Mental models are so basic to understanding the world that people are hardly conscious of them.