ABSTRACT
What is the end result of perception? What is the output of linguistic comprehension? How do we anticipate the world, and make sensible decisions about what to do? What underlies thinking and reasoning? One answer to these questions is that we rely on mental models of the world. Perception yields a mental model, linguistic comprehension yields a mental model, and thinking and reasoning are the internal manipulations of mental models. The germ of this answer was first proposed during World War II by the remarkable Scottish psychologist and physiologist, Kenneth Craik. In a short but prescient book, The nature of explanation, he sketched such a theory. He wrote:
If the organism carries a “small-scale model” of external reality and of its own possible actions within its head, it is able to try out various alternatives, conclude which is the best of them, react to future situations before they arise, utilize the knowledge of past events in dealing with the present and the future, and in every way to react in a much fuller, safer, and more competent manner to the emergencies which face it.
