The role of inhibitory control in the development of analogical reasoning: From general to specific

This study examined the role of inhibitory control in the development of analogical reasoning using inter-task priming paradigms. In Experiment 1, 25 seven-year-olds, 27 nine-year-olds, and 27 adults completed Stroop tasks, which activated general inhibitory control ability, before analogical reasoning tasks. Children and adults performed faster on analogical reasoning tasks when they were primed by Stroop tasks. This priming effect was found to be stronger in children than in adults. In Experiment 2, 25 seven-year-olds, 28 nine-year-olds, and 28 adults completed relative number matching tasks, a more task-relevant inhibitory control task, before analogical reasoning tasks. The children and adults performed faster on analogical reasoning tasks when primed by relative number matching tasks. The priming effect was greater in seven-year-olds than in nine-year-olds and was greater in nine-year-olds than in adults. Thus, inhibitory control, whether assessed with general or specific tasks, played a priming role in analogical reasoning.     

Children's development of analogical reasoning: insights from scene analogy problems

We explored how relational complexity and featural distraction, as varied in scene analogy problems, affect children's analogical reasoning performance. Results with 3- and 4-year-olds, 6- and 7-year-olds, 9- to 11-year-olds, and 13- and 14-year-olds indicate that when children can identify the critical structural relations in a scene analogy problem, development of their ability to reason analogically interacts with both relational complexity and featural distraction. Error patterns suggest that children are more likely to select a distracting object than to make a relational error for problems that present both possibilities. This tendency decreases with age, and older children make fewer errors overall. The results suggest that changes in analogical reasoning with age depend on the interplay among increases in relational knowledge, the capacity to integrate multiple relations, and inhibitory control over featural distraction.     

比例推理的过度使用及其认知机制:一项发展性的负启动研究

从抑制控制模型出发,采用负启动范式探究过度使用比例推理的认知机制。研究包括3个实验,以小学生、中学生和大学生为被试,分别考察了抑制控制在解决缺值应用题、图片推理任务中的作用,以及数字比(整数比、非整数比)是否对抑制控制过程有影响。结果发现:小学生、中学生和大学生在两类实验任务中均出现了负启动效应,但负启动量不存在年级差异;在图片推理任务中,不同数字比类型下的负启动量具有显著差异。研究结果支持了抑制控制模型的观点,即成功解决问题不仅需要掌握问题的内在逻辑,更需要对不恰当策略进行抑制;在解决问题的过程中,无论是儿童、青少年还是成人都需要抑制控制的参与,三者在抑制控制效率上没有差异;数字比类型对抑制过程有影响,但仅限于图片推理问题。     

Perspective-taking ability in bilingual children: Extending advantages in executive control to spatial reasoning

Monolingual and bilingual 8-year-olds performed a computerized spatial perspective-taking task. Children were asked to decide how an observer saw a four-block array from one of three different positions (90°, 180°, and 270° counter-clockwise from the child's position) by selecting one of four responses – the correct response, the egocentric error, an incorrect choice in which the array was correct but in the wrong orientation for the viewer, and an incorrect choice in which the array included an internal spatial error. All children performed similarly on background measures, including fluid intelligence, but bilingual children were more accurate than monolingual children in calculating the observer's view across all three positions, with no differences in the pattern of errors committed by the two language groups. The results are discussed in terms of the effect of bilingualism on modifying performance in a complex spatial task that has implications for academic achievement.     

Executive control of thought and action: in search of the wild homunculus

Executive control is studied in many areas of psychological research using a wide variety of procedures. This article focuses on studies of the executive processes involved in switching between tasks. The experiments discussed were designed to isolate and measure the duration of the executive processes required to switch from one task to another. However, the research is open to alternative interpretations that do not hypothesize executive processes, suggesting that task-switching procedures may not measure the duration of executive control. Further research is required to determine whether or not behavioral effects reflect the involvement of executive processes.     

Cognitive control in belief‐laden reasoning during conclusion processing: An ERP study

Belief bias is the tendency to accept conclusions that are compatible with existing beliefs more frequently than those that contradict beliefs. It is one of the most replicated behavioral findings in the reasoning literature. Recently, neuroimaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event‐related potentials (ERPs) have provided a new perspective and have demonstrated neural correlates of belief bias that have been viewed as supportive of dual‐process theories of belief bias. However, fMRI studies have tended to focus on conclusion processing, while ERPs studies have been concerned with the processing of premises. In the present research, the electrophysiological correlates of cognitive control were studied among 12 subjects using high‐density ERPs. The analysis was focused on the conclusion presentation phase and was limited to normatively sanctioned responses to valid–believable and valid–unbelievable problems. Results showed that when participants gave normatively sanctioned responses to problems where belief and logic conflicted, a more positive ERP deflection was elicited than for normatively sanctioned responses to nonconflict problems. This was observed from ?400 to ?200 ms prior to the correct response being given. The positive component is argued to be analogous to the late positive component (LPC) involved in cognitive control processes. This is consistent with the inhibition of empirically anomalous information when conclusions are unbelievable. These data are important in elucidating the neural correlates of belief bias by providing evidence for electrophysiological correlates of conflict resolution during conclusion processing. Moreover, they are supportive of dual‐process theories of belief bias that propose conflict detection and resolution processes as central to the explanation of belief bias.     

Studying the role of cognitive control in reasoning: evidence for the congruency sequence effect in the ratio-bias task

In this study, we investigated whether control of the conflict between incongruent heuristic and analytical answer options in a reasoning task is modulated by the presence of conflict on previous trials. In two experiments, we found that the incongruency of the previous trial has a significant effect on the control exhibited on the current trial. Our data also showed that this adaptation effect is modulated by the incongruency of the previous series of trials. These results demonstrate the same control adaptation effects for a reasoning task as observed for standard response interference tasks. Coinciding control effects in the two research areas suggest that cognitive control might be an important mechanism underlying performance on reasoning tasks. Based on these results we argue that the study of cognitive control in reasoning could potentially facilitate the refinement of empirical predictions and provide a new tool to explore the exertion of top-down control in human thinking.     

Cognitive mechanisms of visuomotor transformation in movement imitation: Examining predictions based on models of apraxia and motor control

When we observe a movement and then reproduce it, how is this visual input transformed into motor output? Studies on stroke patients with apraxia suggest that there may be two distinct routes used for gesture imitation; an indirect route that recruits stored movement memories (motor programs) and a direct route that bypasses them. The present study examined 30 healthy adults ages 18–80 (mean age = 44.0 years, SD = 19.5) to learn how motor programs are recruited or bypassed in movement imitation depending upon task conditions (whether familiar letters or novel shapes are imitated) and perceptual factors (whether shapes or letters are perceived). Subjects were asked to imitate the movements of a model who formed shapes and letters on a sheer mesh screen, and to report whether they perceived the task as a shape or a letter. Movements were recorded using a Vicon motion analysis system, and subsequently analyzed to determine the degree of difference between the demonstrated and produced movements. As predicted, letter perception on the letter tasks resulted in increased temporal error when the demonstrated stroke order conflicted with subjects’ habitual pattern of letter formation. No such interference effects were observed when the letter tasks were perceived as shapes. These findings are discussed in the context of current theories on imitation, and implications for rehabilitation and motor re-learning are presented.