The role of interactive graphics in learning to reason abstractly

Deductive reasoning has intrigued many psychologists, as (intelligent) people appear not to reason logically in many research tasks. The learning process to reason abstractly, therefore, is either inefficient or limited. In this paper, empirical data is presented that proves that a short-term instruction can facilitate logical reasoning in the selection task when this task is used as a `far transfer test´ (i.e. the instruction is not closely tied to the test). The use of interactive graphics within computer-based instruction based on Tarski´s World (Barwise and Etchemendy, 1990) is a vital facilitating aspect of this instruction. Tarski´s World is a type of interactive graphical representation system in which graphics constitute a microworld affording situativity-in-domain. An outline is given of a theory based on the notion of situated action, and the main results of the research based on this theory are summarised