Inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescence

Abstract

Existing concepts can be a major barrier to learning new counterintuitive concepts that contradict pre-existing experience-based beliefs or misleading perceptual cues. When reasoning about counterintuitive concepts, inhibitory control is thought to enable the suppression of incorrect concepts. This study investigated the association between inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescents (N = 90, 11–15 years). Both response and semantic inhibition were associated with counterintuitive science and maths reasoning, when controlling for age, general cognitive ability, and performance in control science and maths trials. Better response inhibition was associated with longer reaction times in counterintuitive trials, while better semantic inhibition was associated with higher accuracy in counterintuitive trials. This novel finding suggests that different aspects of inhibitory control may offer unique contributions to counterintuitive reasoning during adolescence and provides further support for the hypothesis that inhibitory control plays a role in science and maths reasoning.

The specificity of associations between cognition and attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence

“…Further work will need to replicate this finding, which may reflect an advantage of a slower more deliberative approach to complex maths problems. Consistent with these results, a previous study in adolescents found that the ability to withhold a response on an inhibitory control Go/No-Go task was associated with longer RTs, suggesting more reflection, on science and math problems requiring counterintuitive reasoning (Brookman-Byrne, Mareschal, Tolmie, & Dumontheil, 2018). In the present study however science was not associated with processing speed.…”

The Impact of High School Life Science Teachers’ Subject Matter Knowledge and Knowledge of Student Misconceptions on Students’ Learning

“…Recent studies showed that learners not only need to reconstruct their conceptual understanding, but also need to actively inhibit their misconceptions (Brookman- Byrne et al, 2018;Mason et al, 2019), because many misconceptions are difficult to eradicate and keep coexisting with newly acquired conceptions (Gelman, 2011;Legare and Visala, 2011;Shtulman and Lombrozo, 2016). For example, under time pressure, even professional scientists start to reveal intuitive misconceptions (Goldberg and Thompson-Schill, 2009;Kelemen et al, 2013;Shtulman and Harrington, 2016).…”

The Matrix Reasoning Item Bank (MaRs-IB): Novel, Open- Access Abstract Reasoning Items for Adolescents and Adults

“…Two independent, but complimentary lines of inquiry may provide insights into possible mechanisms of these developmental differences. First, developmental theories emphasize reductions in impulsivity over adolescence, which are linked to the protracted development of prefrontal regions over the same developmental period (Bezdjian et al, 2014;Brookman-Byrne, Mareschal, Tolmie, & Dumontheil, 2018;Hallquist, Geier, & Luna, 2018;Steinberg et al, 2017). Second, computational theories of speed-accuracy trade-offs highlight that the time to arrive at a cognitive solution gives insights into the amount of evidence participants sample before deciding upon a solution (Fitts, 1966;Stone, 1960 tests, which have been used for decades, also arguably carry a higher likelihood of familiarity than novel items like MaRs-IB.…”