Partner Modeling is Mutual

Collaborative learning has been hypothesized to be related to the cognitive effort engaged by co-learners to build a shared understanding. The process of constructing this shared understanding requires each team member to build some kind of representation of the behavior, beliefs, knowledge or intentions of other group members. This contribution reports interesting findings regarding to the process of modeling each other. In two empirical studies, we measured the accuracy of the mutual model, i.e. the difference between what A believes B knows, has done or intends to do and what B actually knows, has done or intends to do. In both studies, we found a significant correlation between the accuracy of A's model of B and the accuracy of B's model of A. This leads us to think that the process of modeling one's partners does not simply reflect individual attitudes or skills but emerges as a property of group interactions. We describe on-going studies that explore these preliminary results