What happens next may change what happens after that.

A system can respond to its own results. An action changes a condition; that condition influences the next action.

A static picture can make this relationship difficult to follow. A useful model can give people a way to inspect it.

Begin with a simple question: where does a result come back into the process as information or influence?

Then ask how people recognize the return. Is the effect immediate or delayed? Does the representation make the sequence visible? What would a participant need to vary in order to understand the relationship better?

These are questions for a model, not a claim that a picture can explain every system by itself.

Howard Pearlmutter's ecological and computational interests include systems dynamics, simulation, graphics, and human interaction with complex results. His formative encounters with Buckminster Fuller and Jay Forrester were part of that interdisciplinary background.

He subsequently created modeling and rendering software, worked on dynamic simulations, and connected computational capability with interactive representations.

Read the NASA story and ecological design.

For your own subject, look for a relationship people describe in a circle but display as a straight line. What becomes clearer when the return path and the sequence appear?

Explore time, interaction, or a learning session. A useful representation can make a changing relationship accessible enough to question together.