A Preliminary Study Of The Role Of Language Processing In Deductive Reasoning

BackgroundDeductive reasoning is an important thinking form of human beings and a psychological cognitive process to make logical inferences.It is also the basis for solving the problems of daily life.The traditional text is that the reasoning process is based on language processing.With the development of cognitive neuroscience technology,some studies have found that the core brain region of reasoning is not the brain region related to language processing in the traditional sense.Supporters of different views have provided relevant experiment evidence through a large number of empirical studies,but the results have not been effectively integrated and need to be further explored.ObjectiveTo explore the processing characteristics of deductive reasoning and the role of language in the process of deductive reasoning.MethodsIn the first study,we recorded the EEG signals of 37 participants（18 female）during the comparative judgment task using non-verbal（symbols）and verbal（Chinese characters）materials.MATLAB and SPSS software were used for data extraction and repeated measurement analysis of P2（200-250ms）and P300（300-450ms）components to explore how the external representation of the stimulus material affected the participants’performance in the judgment process.In the second study,brain BOLD（Blood Oxygen Level Dependency）signals were collected from 33 participants（18 female）during transitive reasoning and verbal memory tasks using transitive reasoning as experimental materials.MATLAB software,SPM and DPABI toolbox were used to compare the differences in brain activation signals between different conditions to explore how language processing affects the deductive reasoning.In the third study,we analyzed collected data from 38 articles using a recently proposed activation likelihood estimation（ALE）approach and used conjunction analysis to better determine the intersection of the results of meta-analyses.ResultsIn the first study,P2 and P300 were induced in both words and non-words tasks.P2,the early perceptual component,has a shorter latency and greater amplitude under non-words conditions（P<0.01）,and the P300 component,which indicates the beginning of mental activity,showed no significant difference between the two materials（P>0.05）.In the second study,the results showed that the participants showed dominant activation of reasoning tasks in both reasoning and memory-related brain regions.In the reasoning-related brain regions,the main effects of task type were mainly shown in the cerebellum,inferior frontal gyrus and hippocampus(P_FDR<0.05).In memory-related brain regions,the main effects of task type were bilateral cerebellum,caudate,medial frontal lobe,supplementary motor area,middle temporal gyrus,inferior temporal gyrus,superior parietal lobules and inferior parietal lobules(P_FDR<0.05).In the third study,the left hemispheres in the inferior parietal lobule（Brodmann area40[BA40]）,middle frontal gyrus（BA6）,medial frontal gyrus（BA8）,inferior frontal gyrus（BA45/46）,caudate,and insula（BA47）were revealed to be significant brain regions via simple-effect analysis（deductive reasoning versus baseline）.Furthermore,inferior frontal gyrus,insula,and cingulate（the key neural hubs of the cingulo-opercular network）were highlighted in overlapped functional connectivity maps.ConclusionDeductive reasoning is a complex cognitive process supported by extensive distributed brain networks（frontal-parietal and subcortical structures）.In the process of deductive reasoning,the encoding and integration of premise information is essential,and it is also crucial to the implementation and monitoring of cognitive processing of reasoning.However,language related brain regions only play an auxiliary role in the deductive reasoning,rather than the core role traditionally believed.