Chapter 3 - Maths and logic: Relationships across development

Abstract

Since ancient times, theorists have suggested that there is a close connection between logical reasoning and mathematics skills, and, to these days, these ideas remain to be influential in shaping people’s attitudes, educational policy, and the job market. Nevertheless, many questions remain about the nature of these relations, and how they unfold during development. In this chapter, I present an overview of both behavioral and neuroscience evidence relating to two particular forms of logical reasoning: transitive and conditional inference. Overall, the results show strong evidence for a link between mathematical and logical reasoning skills, starting from childhood. Additionally, the findings suggest that although explicit reasoning processes might be important for some types of mathematics tasks, logical reasoning and mathematics also share some basic building blocks. This finding suggests that the relations between these high-level thinking processes are not simply based on their shared connections with intelligence and working memory.