P300 and positive slow waves reveal the plausibility in inductive reasoning

The default-interventionist model underlies premise typicality weakening the premise diversity effect during category-based induction: Event-related potentials evidence

The diversity effect during category-based induction (CBI) means that the more diverse the evidence, the higher will be the conclusion's inductive strength. However, it is influenced by the premise typicality. Three competitive cognitive processing models account for this influence: (1) The pre-emptive conflict resolution model assumes that only premise typicality activates; (2) the parallel-competitive model assumes that premise typicality and diversity activate in parallel; and (3) the default-interventionist model assumes that a default response of premise diversity first activates and is subsequently followed by premise typicality, or premise typicality activates first, followed by premise diversity. The timing of premise typicality affecting the diversity effect during CBI was measured using event-related potentials to determine which cognitive model best explains this influence. Similar to previous studies, non-diverse premise inductive tasks involving two typical premise categories were compared with diverse premise inductive tasks involving a typical and an atypical category. The results showed that non-diverse conditions had higher "correct" response proportions, greater inductive strength, higher "definitely" response proportions, and shorter reaction times than diverse conditions, showing that premise typicality weakens the diversity effect. Moreover, the diverse premises elicited larger P2, smaller FN400, and greater frontal post-N400-positivity amplitudes than non-diverse premises, suggesting that premise diversity was facilitated during a relatively early time window and revised by premise typicality in a later window. These results support the default-interventionist in nature during thinking and reasoning.

Negative emotions influence EEG correlates of inference formation during analogical reasoning

Previous research indicates that negative emotions influence cognitive resource utilization during analogical reasoning. However, no research has yet demonstrated an influence of negative emotions on inference formation during analogical reasoning. For this reason, we used evoked response potentials to investigate how negatively valenced content affects inference formation during analogical reasoning. Participants generated inferences about the missing term of 256 four-term analogies consisting of a first pair (A is to B), a second incomplete pair (as C is to?), and a probe term (D). We manipulated the affective valence of the terms (negative/neutral) forming the first two pairs and the soundness of the analogies. In Experiment 1, the terms were words and the relations were semantic in nature. We recorded the N400 event-related component time-locked to the probe term. The effect of analogy soundness on N400 amplitude was weaker when both pairs of terms were negative than when one or both pairs were neutral. In Experiment 2, we used analogies with negatively or neutrally conditioned symbols as terms, and visuospatial transformations as relations. We recorded the P3b event-related component time-locked to the final term of the analogy. The effect of analogy soundness on P3b amplitude was weaker when the first pair of terms was negatively conditioned than when they were neutrally conditioned. Results of both experiments suggested that negatively valenced content impairs the formation of inferences during analogical reasoning, as indicated by reduced effects of analogy soundness on N400 and P3b in the presence of negatively valenced content.

How types of prior knowledge and task properties impact the category-based induction: diverging evidence from the P2, N400, and LPC effects

Category-based induction task was combined with ERP to unravel whether prior knowledge and property interact when inferring on genes or diseases. Larger P2 amplitudes for near taxonomic/causal distances relative to far ones, as well as larger LPC for taxonomic relation relative to thematic relation, are found in both gene and disease tasks. However, smaller N400 is found for taxonomic relation in gene task and thematic relation in disease task, respectively, and larger LPC at 700-850 ms for near taxonomic distance in the gene task and near causal distance in the disease task. These results suggested that the category-based inductive reasoning is context-sensitive, and there may be four stages of category-based inductive reasoning: the early automatic comparison of features/relations (P2), features/relations generalization process (N400), the extraction of common relationship/rule (LPC at 550-700 ms), the inference generation (LPC at 700-850 ms).

The Effect of Static and Dynamic Visual Stimulations on Error Detection Based on Error-Evoked Brain Responses

Error-related potentials (ErrPs) have provided technical support for the brain-computer interface. However, different visual stimulations may affect the ErrPs, and furthermore, affect the error recognition based on ErrPs. Therefore, the study aimed to investigate how people respond to different visual stimulations (static and dynamic) and find the best time window for different stimulation. Nineteen participants were recruited in the ErrPs-based tasks with static and dynamic visual stimulations. Five ErrPs were statistically compared, and the classification accuracies were obtained through linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with nine different time windows. The results showed that the P3, N6, and P8 with correctness were significantly different from those with error in both stimulations, while N1 only existed in static. The differences between dynamic and static errors existed in N1 and P2. The highest accuracy was obtained in the time window related to N1, P3, N6, and P8 for the static condition, and in the time window related to P3, N6, and P8 for the dynamic. In conclusion, the early components of ErrPs may be affected by stimulation modes, and the late components are more sensitive to errors. The error recognition with static stimulation requires information from the entire epoch, while the late windows should be focused more within the dynamic case.

P3a amplitude is related to conclusion specificity during category-based induction

Category-based induction involves the generalization of a novel property (conclusion property) to a new category (conclusion category), based on the knowledge that a category exemplar (premise category) has the respective novel property. Previous studies have shown that conclusion specificity (i.e., specific [S] or generic categories [G]) influences category-based induction. However, the timing of brain activity underlying this effect is not well known, especially with controlling the similarities of premise and conclusion categories between S and G arguments. In this study, the event-related potential (ERP) responses to category-based induction between S and G arguments were compared under both congruent (+, premise and conclusion categories are related) and incongruent (-, premise and conclusion categories are unrelated) arguments; additionally, the similarities of premise and conclusion categories between S and G arguments were controlled. The results showed that replicating this effect, S+ arguments have increased “strong” response rates compared to G+ arguments, suggesting that category-based induction is contingent on factors beyond matched similarities. Moreover, S arguments have more liberal inductive decision thresholds than G arguments, which suggest that conclusion specificity affects the inductive decision reflected by inductive decision thresholds. Furthermore, G+ arguments elicit greater P3a amplitudes than S+ arguments, which suggest greater attention resources allocation to the review of decisions for G+ arguments than that for S+ arguments. Taken together, the conclusion specificity effect during semantic category-based induction can be revealed by “strong” response rates, inductive decision thresholds, and P3a component after controlling the premise-conclusion similarity, providing evidence that category-based induction rely on more than simple similarity judgment and conclusion specificity would affect category-based induction.