Definition and Formalization of the User Mental Model for Creating Adaptive Geointerfaces of Decision Support Systems

The paper is devoted to solving the problem of creating a formal mental model of the user to create adaptive geointerfaces of decision support systems. Representation of the mental model of the user in a formal form allows to use it for the synthesis of individualized user interfaces. Such interfaces allow to take into account the peculiarities of perception of the information by a specific user, the user’s information need and are more effective in terms of solving applied tasks. A particular problem is that in scientific and professional literature in the field of user modeling there are no clear, generally accepted definitions of the user mental model and the user cognitive model concepts. To solve this problem, we analyzed the conceptual apparatus of modern interface development technologies that use user models. As a result of this analysis, original definitions of the user mental model and the user cognitive model concepts were proposed. These definitions were used to solve the problem of formalizing a user mental model. The formal representation of the mental model described in this paper is focused on the user's processing of spatiotemporal data within a decision support system. Therefore, one of the distinctive features of the proposed model is to take into account the importance assessments of both data sources and data visualization methods for each user.