Neuroscientific insights into the development of analogical reasoning

ERP evidence for temporal differences between cross-modal and cross-domain analogical reasoning

Previous studies have shown that individuals not only successfully engage in cross-domain analogies but also accomplish cross-modal reasoning. Yet, the behavioral representation and neurophysiological basis of cross-modal and cross-domain analogical reasoning remain unclear. This study established three analogical reasoning conditions by combining a multi-to-multi learning-test paradigm with a four‑term analogy paradigm: within-domain, cross-domain, and cross-modal conditions. Thirty participants were required to judge whether the relationship between C and D was the same as the learned relationship between A and B. Behavioral results revealed no significant differences in reaction times and accuracy between cross-domain and cross-modal conditions, but both conditions showed significantly lower accuracy than within-domain condition. ERP results indicated a larger P2 amplitude in the cross-modal condition, while a larger N400 amplitude was observed in the cross-domain condition. These findings suggest: (1) The P2 in cross-modal analogical reasoning is associated with more difficult access to cross-modal information. (2) The N400 in cross-domain analogical reasoning is related to more challenging semantic processing. This study provides the first evidence of behavioral and ERP differences between cross-modal and cross-domain analogical reasoning, deepening our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in cross-modal analogical reasoning.

Growing Up Together in Society (GUTS): A team science effort to predict societal trajectories in adolescence and young adulthood

Our society faces a great diversity of opportunities for youth. The 10-year Growing Up Together in Society (GUTS) program has the long-term goal to understand which combination of measures best predict societal trajectories, such as school success, mental health, well-being, and developing a sense of belonging in society. Our leading hypothesis is that self-regulation is key to how adolescents successfully navigate the demands of contemporary society. We aim to test these questions using socio-economic, questionnaire (including experience sampling methods), behavioral, brain (fMRI, sMRI, EEG), hormonal, and genetic measures in four large cohorts including adolescents and young adults. Two cohorts are designed as test and replication cohorts to test the developmental trajectory of self-regulation, including adolescents of different socioeconomic status thereby bridging individual, family, and societal perspectives. The third cohort consists of an entire social network to examine how neural and self-regulatory development influences and is influenced by whom adolescents and young adults choose to interact with. The fourth cohort includes youth with early signs of antisocial and delinquent behavior to understand patterns of societal development in individuals at the extreme ends of self-regulation and societal participation, and examines pathways into and out of delinquency. We will complement the newly collected cohorts with data from existing large-scale population-based and case-control cohorts. The study is embedded in a transdisciplinary approach that engages stakeholders throughout the design stage, with a strong focus on citizen science and youth participation in study design, data collection, and interpretation of results, to ensure optimal translation to youth in society.

Semantic and Visuospatial Fluid Reasoning in School-Aged Autistic Children

In light of the known visuoperceptual strengths and altered language skills in autism, we investigated the impact of problem content (semantic/visuospatial) combined with complexity and presence of lures on fluid reasoning in 43 autistic and 41 typical children (6-13 years old). Increased complexity and presence of lures diminished performance, but less so as the children's age increased. Typical children were slightly more accurate overall, whereas autistic children were faster at solving complex visuospatial problems. Thus, reasoning could rely more extensively on visuospatial strategies in autistic versus typical children. A combined speed-accuracy measure revealed similar performance in both groups, suggesting a similar pace in fluid reasoning development. Visual presentation of conceptual information seems to suit the reasoning processes of autistic children.

Training and asymmetrical transfer effects of working memory and inhibitory control in primary school children

Working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) are two fundamental and supportive components of executive function (EF) that are critical for school-age children. However, the direct comparison of the training and transfer effects of WM and IC training in school-age children still needs to be improved. This study adopted a "pre-, post-, and delayed posttest" design to compare the training, near-transfer, and far-transfer effects of WM and IC in school-age children. A total of 60 children aged 8 to 10 years were randomly assigned to the WM training group, IC training group, or control group. Children in the WM and IC training groups completed 12 sessions of multiple adaptive training tasks tapping different subcomponents of WM (visual-spatial and verbal WM) and IC (interference control and response inhibition) separately. In the pretraining, posttraining, and 6-month follow-up stages, we used WM and IC tasks to evaluate training and near-transfer effects and used analogical reasoning tasks to evaluate far-transfer effects. Results showed significant training effects on visual-spatial and verbal WM, near-transfer effects on response inhibition, and far-transfer effects on analogical reasoning for WM training in the posttraining stage. The improvements in verbal WM and analogical reasoning were maintained for 6 months, whereas for IC training only the training effects on response inhibition and the far-transfer effects on analogical reasoning were observed in the posttraining stage and only the training effects on response inhibition were maintained for 6 months. Results suggested positive training and asymmetrical transfer effects of WM and IC training, which provide new evidence for the effectiveness of WM and IC training in school-age children.

Tracking Development of Connectivity in the Human Brain: Axons and Dendrites

The neuron doctrine laid the foundation for our current thinking about the structural and functional organization of the human brain. With the basic units of the nervous system-neurons-being physically separate, their connectivity relies on the conduction of action potentials in axons and their transmission across the synaptic cleft to the dendrites of other neurons. This study reviews available ex vivo data about the cellular composition of the human cerebral cortex, focusing on axons and dendrites, to conceptualize biological sources of signals detected in vivo with magnetic resonance imaging. To bridge the gap between ex vivo and in vivo observations, I then explain the basic principles of virtual histology, an approach that integrates spatially cell- or process-specific transcriptomic data with magnetic resonance signals to facilitate their neurobiological interpretation. Finally, I provide an overview of the initial insights gained in this manner in studies of brain development and maturation, in both health and disease.

Groupitizing reflects conceptual developments in math cognition and inequities in math achievement from childhood through adolescence

Understanding the cognitive processes central to mathematical development is crucial to addressing systemic inequities in math achievement. We investigate the "Groupitizing" ability in 1209 third to eighth graders (mean age at first timepoint = 10.48, 586 girls, 39.16% Asian, 28.88% Hispanic/Latino, 18.51% White), a process that captures the ability to use grouping cues to access the exact value of a set. Groupitizing improves each year from late childhood to early adolescence (d = 3.29), is a central predictor of math achievement (beta weight = .30), is linked to conceptual processes in mathematics (minimum d = 0.69), and helps explain the dynamic between the ongoing development of non-symbolic number concepts, systemic educational inequities in school associated with SES, and mathematics achievement (minimum beta weight = .11) in ways that explicit symbolic measures may miss.

The Age of Reason: Functional Brain Network Development during Childhood

Human childhood is characterized by dramatic changes in the mind and brain. However, little is known about the large-scale intrinsic cortical network changes that occur during childhood because of methodological challenges in scanning young children. Here, we overcome this barrier by using sophisticated acquisition and analysis tools to investigate functional network development in children between the ages of 4 and 10 years ([Formula: see text]; 50 female, 42 male). At multiple spatial scales, age is positively associated with brain network segregation. At the system level, age was associated with segregation of systems involved in attention from those involved in abstract cognition, and with integration among attentional and perceptual systems. Associations between age and functional connectivity are most pronounced in visual and medial prefrontal cortex, the two ends of a gradient from perceptual, externally oriented cortex to abstract, internally oriented cortex. These findings suggest that both ends of the sensory-association gradient may develop early, in contrast to the classical theories that cortical maturation proceeds from back to front, with sensory areas developing first and association areas developing last. More mature patterns of brain network architecture, controlling for age, were associated with better visuospatial reasoning abilities. Our results suggest that as cortical architecture becomes more specialized, children become more able to reason about the world and their place in it.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Anthropologists have called the transition from early to middle childhood the "age of reason", when children across cultures become more independent. We employ cutting-edge neuroimaging acquisition and analysis approaches to investigate associations between age and functional brain architecture in childhood. Age was positively associated with segregation between cortical systems that process the external world and those that process abstract phenomena like the past, future, and minds of others. Surprisingly, we observed pronounced development at both ends of the sensory-association gradient, challenging the theory that sensory areas develop first and association areas develop last. Our results open new directions for research into how brains reorganize to support rapid gains in cognitive and socioemotional skills as children reach the age of reason.

Various sources of distraction during analogical reasoning

Reasoning by analogy requires mapping relational correspondence between two situations to transfer information from the more familiar (source) to the less familiar situation (target). However, the presence of distractors may lead to invalid conclusions based on semantic or perceptual similarities instead of on relational correspondence. To understand the role of distraction in analogy making, we examined semantically rich four-term analogies (A:B::C:?) and scene analogies, as well as semantically lean geometric analogies and the matrix task tapping general reasoning. We examined (a) what types of lures were most distracting, (b) how the two semantically rich analogy tasks were related, and (c) how much variance in the scores could be attributed to general reasoning ability. We observed that (a) in four-term analogies the distractors semantically related to C impacted performance most strongly, as compared to the perceptual, categorical, and relational distractors, but the two latter distractor types also mattered; (b) distraction sources in four-term and scene analogies were virtually unrelated; and (c) general reasoning explained the largest part of variance in resistance to distraction. The results suggest that various sources of distraction operate at different stages of analogical reasoning and differently affect specific analogy paradigms.

Generating distant analogies facilitates relational integration: Intermediary role of relational mindset and cognitive load

Relational integration is essential for learning, working, and living, as we must encode enormous volumes of information and extract their relations to construct knowledge about the environment. Recent research hints that generating distant analogies can temporarily facilitate learners’ state-based relational integration. This study aimed to investigate the internal mechanism underlying the facilitation effect and preliminarily confirm its application in education. First, we adopted the classical n-term premise integration task (Experiment 1a) and the Latin Square Task (Experiment 1b) to explore the robustness of the facilitation effect. Then we employed an emerging multidimensional relational reasoning task to further explore the internal mechanism underlying this facilitation effect (Experiment 2). Finally, we verified the practical role of the facilitation effect in learning the interaction concept in statistics (Experiment 3). The results showed that generating distant analogies did facilitate students’ relational integration performance, both in classical cognitive tasks and in a practical learning task, and a relational mindset and cognitive load play an intermediary role in the facilitation, supporting the cognitive load theory. The results suggest that generating distant analogies can be a useful warm-up activity to assist educators in promoting students’ relational integration.

Interindividual variability in functional connectivity discovers differential development of cognition and transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology in youth

Cognitive and psychological development during adolescence is different from one another, which is rooted in individual differences in maturational changes in the adolescent brain. This study employed multi-modal MRI data and characterized interindividual variability in functional connectivity (IVFC) and its associations with cognition and psychopathology using the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (PNC) of 755 youth. We employed resting state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) and diffusion weighted images (DWIs) to estimate brain structural and functional networks. We computed the IVFC of individuals and examined its relation with structural and functional organizations. We further employed sparse partial least squares (sparse-PLS) and meta-analysis to examine the developmental associations of the IVFC with cognition and transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology in early, middle, and late adolescence. Our results revealed that the IVFC spatial topography reflects the brain functional integration and structure-function decoupling. Age effects on the IVFC of association networks were mediated by the FC among the triple networks, including frontoparietal, salience, and default mode networks (DMN), while those of primary and cerebellar networks were mediated by the cerebello-cortical FC. The IVFC of the triple and cerebellar networks explained the variance of executive functions and externalizing behaviors in early adolescence and then the variance of emotion and internalizing and psychosis in middle and late adolescence. We further evaluated this finding via meta-analysis on task-based studies on cognition and psychopathology. These findings implicate the emerging importance of the IVFC of the triple and cerebellar networks in cognitive, emotional, and psychopathological development during adolescence.

The Neural Correlates of Analogy Component Processes

Analogical reasoning is a core facet of higher cognition in humans. Creating analogies as we navigate the environment helps us learn. Analogies involve reframing novel encounters using knowledge of familiar, relationally similar contexts stored in memory. When an analogy links a novel encounter with a familiar context, it can aid in problem solving. Reasoning by analogy is a complex process that is mediated by multiple brain regions and mechanisms. Several advanced computational architectures have been developed to simulate how these brain processes give rise to analogical reasoning, like the "learning with inferences and schema abstraction" architecture and the Companion architecture. To obtain this power to simulate human reasoning, theses architectures assume that various computational "subprocesses" comprise analogical reasoning, such as analogical access, mapping, inference, and schema induction, consistent with the structure-mapping framework proposed decades ago. However, little is known about how these subprocesses relate to actual brain processes. While some work in neuroscience has linked analogical reasoning to regions of brain prefrontal cortex, more research is needed to investigate the wide array of specific neural hypotheses generated by the computational architectures. In the current article, we review the association between historically important computational architectures of analogy and empirical studies in neuroscience. In particular, we focus on evidence for a frontoparietal brain network underlying analogical reasoning and the degree to which brain mechanisms mirror the computational subprocesses. We also offer a general vantage on the current- and future-states of neuroscience research in this domain and provide some recommendations for future neuroimaging studies.

Developmental differences in memory reactivation relate to encoding and inference in the human brain

Despite the fact that children can draw on their memories to make novel inferences, it is unknown whether they do so through the same neural mechanisms as adults. We measured memory reinstatement as participants aged 7-30 years learned new, related information. While adults brought memories to mind throughout learning, adolescents did so only transiently, and children not at all. Analysis of trial-wise variability in reactivation showed that discrepant neural mechanisms-and in particular, what we interpret as suppression of interfering memories during learning in early adolescence-are nevertheless beneficial for later inference at each developmental stage. These results suggest that while adults build integrated memories well-suited to informing inference directly, children and adolescents instead must rely on separate memories to be individually referenced at the time of inference decisions.

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.

Charting the development of emotion comprehension and abstraction from childhood to adulthood using observer-rated and linguistic measures

This study examined two facets of emotion development: emotion word comprehension (knowing the meaning of emotion words such as "anger" or "excitement") and emotion concept abstraction (representing emotions in terms of internal psychological states that generalize across situations). Using a novel emotion vocabulary assessment, we captured how a cross-sectional sample of participants aged 4-25 (N = 196) defined 24 emotions. Smoothing spline regression models suggested that emotion comprehension followed an emergent shape: Knowledge of emotion words increased across childhood and plateaued around age 11. Human coders rated the abstractness of participants' responses, and these ratings also followed an emergent shape but plateaued significantly later than comprehension, around age 18. An automated linguistic analysis of abstractness supported coders' perceptions of increased abstractness across age. Finally, coders assessed the definitional strategies participants used to describe emotions. Young children tended to describe emotions using concrete strategies such as providing example situations that evoked those emotions or by referring to physiological markers of emotional experiences. Whereas use of these concrete strategies decreased with age, the tendency to use more abstract strategies such as providing general definitions that delineated the causes and characteristics of emotions or by providing synonyms of emotion words increased with age. Overall, this work (a) provides a tool for assessing definitions of emotion terms, (b) demonstrates that emotion concept abstraction increases across age, and (c) suggests that adolescence is a period in which emotion words are comprehended but their level of abstraction continues to mature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The Role of Perceptual Interference, Semantic Interference, and Relational Integration in the Development of Analogical Reasoning

This study aimed to examine the role of perceptual interference, semantic interference, and relational integration (RI) in the development of analogical reasoning, and to compare the interactive pattern of interference and RI in children and adults. In Experiment 1, we tested 31 3- and 4-year-olds, 27 5- and 6-year-olds, and 40 adults for perceptual interference and RI in analogical reasoning. Perceptual interference emerged when proper mapping between analogically matching objects was incoherent with their perceptual features. RI was evaluated via manipulation of the number of objects in an analogical scene. Significant main effects of perceptual interference and RI were found in children and adults. In Experiment 2, we tested 30 3- and 4-year-olds, 27 5- and 6-year-olds, and 40 adults for semantic interference and RI in analogical reasoning. Semantic interference emerged when proper mapping between analogically matching objects was incoherent with their categorical features. Results showed significant main effects of semantic interference and RI in children and adults. The results of both experiments suggested different mechanisms of interference and RI in children and adults. For children, interference and RI depended on shared cognitive sources. If one factor (i.e., interference resolution) needed more cognitive demand, there would be limited resources available for another factor (i.e., RI). Furthermore, for adults, the increased load of RI and interference on adults' analogical reasoning exceeded the sum of their respective singular effects. For 3- and 4-year-olds, the degree of perceptual interference was larger than the degree of semantic interference in the Binary Relation condition, whereas there was no significant difference between the degree of two types of interference in the Quaternary Relation condition. Moreover, for 5- and 6-year-olds, the degree of semantic interference was larger than the degree of perceptual interference in both relation conditions. For adults, there was no difference between the degree of two types of interference in both relation conditions. The article also discusses the theoretical and practical implications of this research.

The Unique Contributions of Verbal Analogical Reasoning and Nonverbal Matrix Reasoning to Science and Maths Problem-Solving in Adolescence

Relational reasoning, the ability to detect meaningful patterns, matures through adolescence. The unique contributions of verbal analogical and nonverbal matrix relational reasoning to science and maths are not well understood. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected during science and maths problem-solving, and participants (N = 36, 11-15 years) also completed relational reasoning and executive function tasks. Higher verbal analogical reasoning associated with higher accuracy and faster reaction times in science and maths, and higher activation in the left anterior temporal cortex during maths problem-solving. Higher nonverbal matrix reasoning associated with higher science accuracy, higher science activation in regions across the brain, and lower maths activation in the right middle temporal gyrus. Science associations mostly remained significant when individual differences in executive functions and verbal IQ were taken into account, while maths associations typically did not. The findings indicate the potential importance of supporting relational reasoning in adolescent science and maths learning.

Above and beyond the concrete: The diverse representational substrates of the predictive brain

In recent years, scientists have increasingly taken to investigate the predictive nature of cognition. We argue that prediction relies on abstraction, and thus theories of predictive cognition need an explicit theory of abstract representation. We propose such a theory of the abstract representational capacities that allow humans to transcend the "here-and-now." Consistent with the predictive cognition literature, we suggest that the representational substrates of the mind are built as a hierarchy, ranging from the concrete to the abstract; however, we argue that there are qualitative differences between elements along this hierarchy, generating meaningful, often unacknowledged, diversity. Echoing views from philosophy, we suggest that the representational hierarchy can be parsed into: modality-specific representations, instantiated on perceptual similarity; multimodal representations, instantiated primarily on the discovery of spatiotemporal contiguity; and categorical representations, instantiated primarily on social interaction. These elements serve as the building blocks of complex structures discussed in cognitive psychology (e.g., episodes, scripts) and are the inputs for mental representations that behave like functions, typically discussed in linguistics (i.e., predicators). We support our argument for representational diversity by explaining how the elements in our ontology are all required to account for humans' predictive cognition (e.g., in subserving logic-based prediction; in optimizing the trade-off between accurate and detailed predictions) and by examining how the neuroscientific evidence coheres with our account. In doing so, we provide a testable model of the neural bases of conceptual cognition and highlight several important implications to research on self-projection, reinforcement learning, and predictive-processing models of psychopathology.

The roles of item repetition and position in infants' abstract rule learning

We asked whether 11- and 14- month-old infants' abstract rule learning, an early form of analogical reasoning, is susceptible to processing constraints imposed by limits in attention and memory for sequence position. We examined 11- and 14- month-old infants' learning and generalization of abstract repetition rules ("repetition anywhere," Experiment 1 or "medial repetition," Experiment 2) and ordering of specific items (edge positions, Experiment 3) in 4-item sequences. Infants were habituated to sequences containing repetition- and/or position-based structure and then tested with "familiar" vs. "novel" (random) sequences composed of new items. Eleven-month-olds (N = 40) failed to learn abstract repetition rules, but 14-month-olds (N = 40) learned rules under both conditions. In Experiment 3, 11-month-olds (N = 20) learned item edge positions in sequences identical to those in Experiment 2. We conclude that infant sequence learning is constrained by item position in similar ways as in adults.

Eye movements provide insight into individual differences in children's analogical reasoning strategies

Analogical reasoning is considered a key driver of cognitive development and is a strong predictor of academic achievement. However, it is difficult for young children, who are prone to focusing on perceptual and semantic similarities among items rather than relational commonalities. For example, in a classic A:B::C:? propositional analogy task, children must inhibit attention towards items that are visually or semantically similar to C, and instead focus on finding a relational match to the A:B pair. Competing theories of reasoning development attribute improvements in children's performance to gains in either executive functioning or semantic knowledge. Here, we sought to identify key drivers of the development of analogical reasoning ability by using eye gaze patterns to infer problem-solving strategies used by six-year-old children and adults. Children had a greater tendency than adults to focus on the immediate task goal and constrain their search based on the C item. However, large individual differences existed within children, and more successful reasoners were able to maintain the broader goal in mind and constrain their search by initially focusing on the A:B pair before turning to C and the response choices. When children adopted this strategy, their attention was drawn more readily to the correct response option. Individual differences in children's reasoning ability were also related to rule-guided behavior but not to semantic knowledge. These findings suggest that both developmental improvements and individual differences in performance are driven by the use of more efficient reasoning strategies regarding which information is prioritized from the start, rather than the ability to disengage from attractive lure items.

Neuroscientific insights into the development of analogical reasoning

Analogical reasoning, or the ability to find correspondences between entities based on shared relationships, supports knowledge acquisition. As such, the development of this ability during childhood is thought to promote learning. Here, we sought to better understand the mechanisms by which analogical reasoning about semantic relations improves over childhood and adolescence (e.g. chalk is to chalkboard as pen is to…?). We hypothesized that age-related differences would manifest as differences in the brain regions associated with one or more of the following cognitive functions: (1) controlled semantic retrieval, or the ability to retrieve task-relevant semantic associations; (2) response control, or the ability to override the tendency to respond to a salient distractor; and/or (3) relational integration, or the ability to consider jointly two mental relations. In order to test these hypotheses, we analyzed patterns of fMRI activation during performance of a pictorial propositional analogy task across 95 typically developing children between the ages of 6 and 18 years old. Despite large age-related differences in task performance, particularly over ages 6-10 but through to around age 14, participants across the whole age range recruited a common network of frontal, parietal and temporal regions. However, activation in a brain region that has been implicated in controlled semantic retrieval - left anterior prefrontal cortex (BA 47/45) - was positively correlated with age, and also with performance after controlling for age. This finding indicates that improved performance over middle childhood and early adolescence on this analogical reasoning task is driven largely by improvements in the ability to selectively retrieve task-relevant semantic relationships.