The CIA has an excellent online library (just found this out), and saw an incredible book called The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, which is a study of how we think.

It deals with the limitations of how we think, and how to overcome some of those limitations.

Surprisingly, it uses the language of mental models frequently:

Herbert Simon first advanced the concept of “bounded” or limited rationality. Because of limits in human mental capacity, he argued, the mind cannot cope directly with the complexity of the world. Rather, we construct a simplified mental model of reality and then work with this model. We behave rationally within the confines of our mental model, but this model is not always well adapted to the requirements of the real world. The concept of bounded rationality has come to be recognized widely, though not universally, both as an accurate portrayal of human judgment and choice and as a sensible adjustment to the limitations inherent in how the human mind functions.

It’s a great resource and I’ll probably be referring back to it often.