Strategies and tactics in deductive reasoning

This book offers one of the first systematic attempts to discuss the role of strategies for deductive reasoning. After a review of the different proposals, we introduce an operational definition of strategies: A strategy is a set of explicit, systematic cognitive processes, which are used when solving a deduction problem in order to simplify the problem or to come as quickly/easily as possible to a conclusion. A strategy is composed of smaller steps, which we call tactics. These tactics are largely unconscious. With this definition, one can discuss much easier the different observations mentioned in the book. In the last part of the chapter, we discuss more extensively the relation between the mental model theory and strategies