Mental models, cognitive maps, and the challenge of quantitative analysis of their network representations

Cognitive maps, or mental maps, are externalized portrayals of mental models—people's mental representations of reality and their presumptions about how the world works. They are often used as the intermediary step toward uncovering individuals' presumptions of the outside world. Yet, the next step is often vague: once one's understanding of the real world is mapped, how can we systematically evaluate the maps and compare and contrast them? In this note, we review several common approaches to analyzing cognitive maps, some rooted in network theories, and apply them to a dataset of 30 graduate students who analyzed a complex socioenvironmental problem. Our analysis shows that these methods provide inconsistent results and often fall short of capturing variations in mental models. The analysis points to a lack of effective methods for examining such maps and helps articulate a major research problem for systems‐thinking scholars. © 2023 System Dynamics Society.