It was edited by Dedre Gentner and Albert L. Stevens, both employees of Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. at the time.
According to the acknowledgment of the book, it resulted from a workshop on mental models held at the University of California, San Diego in October 1980, that was jointly sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and the Sloan Foundation.
[1] The American Journal of Psychology reviewed the work, stating that it would be of interest to "those who are concerned with what is new in cognitive science".
[2] Instructional Science also wrote a review, writing "Mental Models succeeds as an introduction to the vigorous, multidisciplinary attack on the ethereal problems surrounding knowledge representation.
Whether mental models will prove their mettle in the earthly settings of instructional applications remains an open question.