Overcoming Perceptual Features in Logical Reasoning: A Parametric Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Abstract

Abstract& Participants experience difficulty detecting that an item depicting an H-in-a-square confirms the logical rule, ''If there is not a T then there is not a circle.'' Indeed, there is a perceptual conflict between the items mentioned in the rule (T and circle) and in the test item (H and square). Much evidence supports the claim that correct responding depends on detecting and resolving such conflicts. One aim of this study is to find more precise neurological evidence in support of this claim by using a parametric event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm. We scanned 20 participants while they were required to judge whether or not a conditional rule was verified (or falsified) by a corresponding target item. We found that the right middorsolateral prefrontal cortex (mid-DLPFC) was specifically engaged, together with the medial frontal (anterior cingulate and presupplementary motor area [pre-SMA]) and parietal cortices, when mismatching was present. Activity in these regions was also linearly correlated with the level of mismatch between the rule and the test item. Furthermore, a psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed that activation of the mid-DLPFC, which increases as mismatching does, was accompanied by a decrease in functional integration with the bilateral primary visual cortex and an increase in functional integration with the right parietal cortex. This indicates a need to break away from perceptual cues in order to select an appropriate logical response. These findings strongly indicate that the regions involved in inhibitory control (including the right mid-DLPFC and the medial frontal cortex) are engaged when participants have to overcome perceptual mismatches in order to provide a logical response. These findings are also consistent with neuroimaging studies investigating the belief bias, where prior beliefs similarly interfere with logical reasoning. &

Logic, language and the brain

“…A recent series of results (Monti et al, 2007(Monti et al, , 2009Rodriguez-Moreno and Hirsch, 2009) nonetheless suggests that language areas are not involved in the deductive process, a finding consistent with several previous reports (Canessa et al, 2005;Fangmeier et al, 2006;Goel and Dolan, 2001;Knauff et al, 2002;Noveck et al, 2004;Parsons and Osherson, 2001;Prado and Noveck, 2007). We interpret these findings as implying that the role of language is confined to initial encoding of verbal statements into mental representations suitable for the inferential calculus.…”

Neural Correlates of Belief-Laden Reasoning during Premise Processing: An Event-Related Potential Study

“…The activation of the ACC was probably related to the detection of such conflict between empirical beliefs and the logical rules in the ICMT conditional argument, as suggested by previous literature [6] . Additionally, other studies found increased ACC activity when perceptual information conflicted with the logical conclusion of conditional arguments [13,14] .…”

The neuroscience of conceptual learning in science and mathematics

“…A defining property of the dual process model of reasoning is that the analytic system is able to inhibit and override the heuristic system so that individuals can successfully carry out logical tasks 48,49,50 . Neuroimaging work on logical and scientific reasoning in adults has consistently shown that the inhibition of pre-existing beliefs, misleading perceptualbiases, and intuitive heuristics is associated with the activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the prefrontal cortex, notably the inferior frontal cortex (IFG) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) 10,11,25,26,48 .…”