REPRESENTATION ARTEFACT

Charles François (2004). REPRESENTATION ARTEFACT, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(2): 2843.

Collection	International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics
Year	2004
Vol. (num.)	2(2)
ID	◀ 2843 ▶
Object type	Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model

Any feature in a model that does not correspond to some characteristic of the concrete system.

This concept is introduced by D. GERNERT, who writes: “When systems of the real world are modelled on the basis of a finite scheme of representation, some phenomena may occur which are relevant only within the model, but have nothing to do with the underlying system…

“In representing a function by a J. FOURIER expansion the well-known Gibbs phenomenon may appear, which means that there are peaks in the representation that have no counter part in the original function” (1994, p.126).

Representation artifacts are produced by some implicit feature of the model itself and pass easily unnoticed. This may lead to subtle errors, very difficult to discover.

See also