ABSTRACT
There is a well-known fable about six learned blind men and an elephant. In this fable, each blind man encounters the elephant from a different perspective and develops his own opinion as to the nature of this beast: One grabs his ear and thinks it is a fan, another feels his tail and believes it to be a rope, and so on. The fable concludes with each blind man steadfastly holding his own narrow opinion. Among the many metaphorical elephants in cognitive science, one that stands out is the concept mental model. In this paper we examine this elephant by exploring the multiplicity of claims made about mental models. We do not pretend to be any less blind than other researchers who have tackled these problems, nor do we claim to have the only answers to many of the questions we raise. What we hope is that by taking a fresh look at mental models research we can provide some unification of concepts and point to promising methodologies and applications. We hope that by examining the issues surrounding mental models we raise the awareness of those who would try to use mental models in construction of knowledge-based systems (see Davis, 1982).
