Abstract
Neuroscience has studied deductive reasoning over the last 20 years under the assumption that deductive inferences are not only de jure but also de facto distinct from other forms of inference. The objective of this research is to verify if logically valid deductions leave any cerebral electrical trait that is distinct from the trait left by non-valid deductions. 23 subjects with an average age of 20.35 years were registered with MEG and placed into a two conditions paradigm (100 trials for each condition) which each presented the exact same relational complexity (same variables and content) but had distinct logical complexity. Both conditions show the same electromagnetic components (P3, N4) in the early temporal window (250–525 ms) and P6 in the late temporal window (500–775 ms). The significant activity in both valid and invalid conditions is found in sensors from medial prefrontal regions, probably corresponding to the ACC or to the medial prefrontal cortex. The amplitude and intensity of valid deductions is significantly lower in both temporal windows (p = 0.0003). The reaction time was 54.37% slower in the valid condition. Validity leaves a minimal but measurable hypoactive electrical trait in brain processing. The minor electrical demand is attributable to the recursive and automatable character of valid deductions, suggesting a physical indicator of computational deductive properties. It is hypothesized that all valid deductions are recursive and hypoactive.
Highlights
Neuroscience has studied deductive reasoning over the last 20 years under the assumption that deductive inferences are de jure and de facto distinct from other forms of inference
The literature shows that both valid and non-valid propositional reasoning involves left frontoparietal circuits related to linguistic areas. Reverberi[18,20] has showed that in simple valid deductive inferences, neural processing is determined by its relational complexity, which is the number of variables appearing in the deductive task and the arity and number of functional arguments in their r elations[25]
The perspective based on premise integration excludes a wide family of deductive inferences which are valid but not integrable, and which are eventually used as a control or baseline in deductive reasoning experiments because their conclusions are not integrable with their premises
Summary
Neuroscience has studied deductive reasoning over the last 20 years under the assumption that deductive inferences are de jure and de facto distinct from other forms of inference. Assuming there is a clear difference between deductive and non-deductive arguments[3], the objective of this paper is to determine if there is a neural difference between these inferences, and to this end, logical validity is electrically studied. In sudoku games or Latin square tasks, the relational complexity is determined by the size of the matrix and the number of rows and columns that need to be simultaneously considered From this integration-based approach to deduction, we may interpret that valid and invalid deduction develop neurally over the same substrate, which basically depends on the information’s semantic content and not on its logical structure. The research methodology has been progressively refined over the years, and as a result, an extended sequence of studies has shown the involvement of deductive “core” frontal areas (including both the mesial BA8 and left rostrolateral prefrontal cortex in BA10) which do not coincide with the linguistic areas identified by the integrational perspective
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