What Is (and Is Not) a Cultural Model

Currently, “cultural model research” is used for any study about shared understandings in some domain. Originally, however, cognitive anthropologists distinguished the study of cultural models from other approaches to the study of shared understandings. The core meaning of a cultural model is that it is a shared cognitive schema. This chapter proposes criteria to distinguish cognitive schemas from other mental representations, drawing upon Ghosh and Gilboa (Neuropsychologia 53:104–114, 2014). I add to their list some key features of cultural models as the originators of that approach understood them. Given this list of features, I propose some shared mental representations that either are not cultural models or are not cultural models as earlier cognitive anthropologists thought about them. Finally, I consider possible limitations of cultural models as conceived by that earlier generation of cognitive anthropologists. I do not argue that research in cognitive anthropology should be limited to the study of mental representations that have all the features of cultural models as I have delineated them. However, we should recognize the differences among types of mental representations, the roles they play in thought and action, and the implications of those differences for the methods we employ.