Brain network reconfiguration for narrative and argumentative thought

Yangwen Xu,Lorenzo Vignali,Roberto Bottini,Davide Crepaldi,Olivier Collignon

doi:10.1038/s42003-021-02151-9

Abstract

Our brain constructs reality through narrative and argumentative thought. Some hypotheses argue that these two modes of cognitive functioning are irreducible, reflecting distinct mental operations underlain by separate neural bases; Others ascribe both to a unitary neural system dedicated to long-timescale information. We addressed this question by employing inter-subject measures to investigate the stimulus-induced neural responses when participants were listening to narrative and argumentative texts during fMRI. We found that following both kinds of texts enhanced functional couplings within the frontoparietal control system. However, while a narrative specifically implicated the default mode system, an argument specifically induced synchronization between the intraparietal sulcus in the frontoparietal control system and multiple perisylvian areas in the language system. Our findings reconcile the two hypotheses by revealing commonalities and differences between the narrative and the argumentative brain networks, showing how diverse mental activities arise from the segregation and integration of the existing brain systems.

Highlights

Our brain constructs reality through narrative and argumentative thought
To investigate the neural bases of narrative and argumentative thought, we compared the stimulus-evoked regional neural activity and interregional functional couplings when participants were listening to narrative and argumentative texts to those when participants were listening to sentence-scrambled texts
Argumentative thought induced the functional couplings between the anterior bank of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) in the control system and multiple perisylvian areas in the language system, whereas narrative thought did not

Summary

Introduction

Our brain constructs reality through narrative and argumentative thought. Some hypotheses argue that these two modes of cognitive functioning are irreducible, reflecting distinct mental operations underlain by separate neural bases; Others ascribe both to a unitary neural system dedicated to long-timescale information. We need to identify and evaluate the logical structure embedded in the use of natural language (i.e., “informal logic”21), e.g., supplying the missing premises and assessing the validity and strength of the argument This cognitive process is considered crucial to critical thinking[21]. Despite the fact that both modes of thought are pervasive in our mental life, most neuroimaging studies merely focused on the neural basis of narrative thought (see reviews[22,23]) In these studies, a narrative text was usually divided into its constituent sentences, and the order of these sentences was randomized to form a sentence-scrambled version of the text. As both thought modes progress coherently, iteratively accumulating information over time and holding the information online over a long timescale seems crucial to framing a narrative and an argument

Methods

Results

Conclusion