Mental models use common neural spatial structure for spatial and abstract content

Transfer from spatial education to verbal reasoning and prediction of transfer from learning-related neural change

Current debate surrounds the promise of neuroscience for education, including whether learning-related neural changes can predict learning transfer better than traditional performance-based learning assessments. Longstanding debate in philosophy and psychology concerns the proposition that spatial processes underlie seemingly nonspatial/verbal reasoning (mental model theory). If so, education that fosters spatial cognition might improve verbal reasoning. Here, in a quasi-experimental design in real-world STEM classrooms, a curriculum devised to foster spatial cognition yielded transfer to improved verbal reasoning. Further indicating a spatial basis for verbal transfer, students' spatial cognition gains predicted and mediated their reasoning improvement. Longitudinal fMRI detected learning-related changes in neural activity, connectivity, and representational similarity in spatial cognition-implicated regions. Neural changes predicted and mediated learning transfer. Ensemble modeling demonstrated better prediction of transfer from neural change than from traditional measures (tests and grades). Results support in-school "spatial education" and suggest that neural change can inform future development of transferable curricula.

Are Rank Orders Mentally Represented by Spatial Arrays?

The present contribution argues that transitive reasoning, as exemplified in paradigms of linear order construction in mental space, is associated with spatial effects. Starting from robust findings from the early 70s, research so far has widely discussed the symbolic distance effect (SDE). This effect shows that after studying pairs of relations, e.g., "A > B," "B > C," and "D > E," participants are more correct, and faster in correct responding, the wider the "distance" between two elements within the chain A > B > C > D > E. The SDE has often been given spatial interpretations, but alternatively, non-spatial models of the effect are also viable on the empirical basis so far, which means the question about spatial contributions to the construction of analog representations of rank orders is still open. We suggest here that laterality effects can add the necessary additional information to support the idea of spatial processes. We introduce anchoring effects in terms of showing response advantages for congruent versus incongruent pairings of presentation location on a screen on the one hand, and the hypothetical spatial arrangement of the order in mental space, on the other hand. We report pertinent findings and discuss anchoring paradigms with respect to their internal validity as well as their being rooted in basic mechanisms of trained reading/writing direction.

Transient Neural Activation of Abstract Relations on an Incidental Analogy Task

Although a large proportion of the lexicon consists of abstract concepts, little is known about how they are represented by the brain. Here, we investigated how the mind represents relations shared between sets of mental representations that are superficially unrelated, such as car-engine and dog-tongue, but that nonetheless share a more general, abstract relation, such as whole-part. Participants saw a pair of words on each trial and were asked to indicate whether they could think of a relation between them. Importantly, they were not explicitly asked whether different word pairs shared the same relation, as in analogical reasoning tasks. We observed representational similarity for abstract relations in regions in the "conceptual hub" network, even when controlling for semantic relatedness between word pairs. By contrast, we did not observe representational similarity in regions previously implicated in explicit analogical reasoning. A given relation was sometimes repeated across sequential word pairs, allowing us to test for behavioral and neural priming of abstract relations. Indeed, we observed faster RTs and greater representational similarity for primed than unprimed trials, suggesting that mental representations of abstract relations are transiently activated on this incidental analogy task. Finally, we found a significant correlation between behavioral and neural priming across participants. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate relational priming using functional neuroimaging and to show that neural representations are strengthened by relational priming. This research shows how abstract concepts can be brought to mind momentarily, even when not required for task performance.

Relational Integration in the Human Brain: A Review and Synthesis

Relational integration is required when multiple explicit representations of relations between entities must be jointly considered to make inferences. We provide an overview of the neural substrate of relational integration in humans and the processes that support it, focusing on work on analogical and deductive reasoning. In addition to neural evidence, we consider behavioral and computational work that has informed neural investigations of the representations of individual relations and of relational integration. In very general terms, evidence from neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and neuromodulatory studies points to a small set of regions (generally left lateralized) that appear to constitute key substrates for component processes of relational integration. These include posterior parietal cortex, implicated in the representation of first-order relations (e.g., A:B); rostrolateral pFC, apparently central in integrating first-order relations so as to generate and/or evaluate higher-order relations (e.g., A:B::C:D); dorsolateral pFC, involved in maintaining relations in working memory; and ventrolateral pFC, implicated in interference control (e.g., inhibiting salient information that competes with relevant relations). Recent work has begun to link computational models of relational representation and reasoning with patterns of neural activity within these brain areas.

Knowledge Across Reference Frames: Cognitive Maps and Image Spaces

In human and non-human animals, conceptual knowledge is partially organized according to low-dimensional geometries that rely on brain structures and computations involved in spatial representations. Recently, two separate lines of research have investigated cognitive maps, that are associated with the hippocampal formation and are similar to world-centered representations of the environment, and image spaces, that are associated with the parietal cortex and are similar to self-centered spatial relationships. We review evidence supporting cognitive maps and image spaces, and we propose a hippocampal-parietal network that can account for the organization and retrieval of knowledge across multiple reference frames. We also suggest that cognitive maps and image spaces may be two manifestations of a more general propensity of the mind to create low-dimensional internal models.