Flowing Waters or Teeming Crowds: Mental Models of Electricity
Dedre Gentner, Donald R. Gentner · Psychology Press eBooks · 2014
Analogical comparisons with simple or familiar systems occur often in people’s descriptions of complex systems, sometimes as explicit analogical models, and sometimes as implicit analogies, in which the person seems to borrow structure from the base domain without noticing it. Phrases like “ current being routed along a conductor,” or “ stopping the flow” of electricity are examples.