"...inferring, deducing, concluding..."

[Adamsberg] was not in the habit of reflecting deeply. He has never been able to understand what was happening when he saw people put their hands to their foreheads and say. “Right, let’s give this some thought.” What was going on in their brains, the way they managed to organize precise ideas, inferring, deducing, concluding, all this was a complete mystery to him. He had to admit that it produced results, and that after this kind of brainstorming people took decisions, something he admired while convinced that he himself was lacking in some way. But when he tried it, when he sat down and said, “Right, I’ll give it some thought,” nothing happened in his head., It was even at moments like this that he was aware of a complete blank. Adamsberg never realized when he was thinking and the instant he became conscious of it, it stopped. As a result he was never sure where all his ideas, his intuitions and his decisions came from. (46-47)

Danglard saw that Adamsberg was preoccupied. , but that he nevertheless didn't give the impression of deep concentration. Their previous commissaire had been just the opposite. He had been completely tied up in his thoughts, a man of perpetual rumination. But Adamsberg was open to every wind, like a cabin made of rough planks, letting his brain receive fresh air, Danglard thought. Yes , it was true, you could imagine that everything that went in through his ears, eyes and nose -- smoke, colors, paper rustling -- caused a draught to whistle through his thoughts and stopped them solidifying. This man, Danglatd thought, is attentive to everything, which means he pasy attention to nothing. (57-58).

--Fred Vargas, The Chalk Circle Man (1997)