Schemata and Mental Models in Recognition-Primed Decision Making

In this chapter we inquire into the role of mental models (specific situation representations) and schemata (abstract cognitive structures that guide the construction of mental models) in recognition-primed decision making, thereby relating three situation-assessment-based decision models (Endsley, chapter 26, this volume; Klein, chapter 27, this volume; Serfaty, MacMillan, Entin, & Entin, chapter 23, this volume) to one another, and to Neisser (1976) and Rouse and Morris (1986). The chapter consists of five sections. The first two sections present certain differences between expert and novice decision making in a sea-combat simulation that prompted the inquiry. The third section argues that the RPD model (Klein, chapter 27, this volume) cannot account for some of these differences satisfactorily. The fourth section introduces the distinction between schemata and mental models and discusses their role in recognition-primed decision making. The fifth section outlines the implications of conceptualizing recognition-primed decision making as schemata-driven mental modeling for theory, research, and training applications. We begin with a brief description of differences between the decision processes of expert and novice Israel Defense Force gunboat commanders in a high-fidelity simulator of sea combat.