Mental Models, Semantical Games and Varieties of Intelligence

In the study of intelligence as exhibited in logical reasoning, one of the most popular tools has recently been the notion of mental model. For instance, Philip Johnson-Laird has used this term as the title of an entire treatise on the cognitive psychology of logical reasoning.1 It is not my purpose here to discuss particular prior uses of the concept of mental model in the literature. Instead, I shall analyze the nature of the very idea of mental model. What precisely is meant by this term? What can be meant by it?