Logical Reasoning Task Research Articles

Cognitive Function in Simulated Paragliding Flight.

INTRODUCTION: Paragliding is an emerging discipline of aviation, with recreational pilots flying distances over 100 km. It remains risky. Accidents typically relate to pilot error rather than equipment failure. We measured cognition and physiological responses during simulated flight, to investigate whether errors might be due to pilot impairment, rather than misjudgment.METHODS: There were 10 male paraglider pilots (aged 19-58 yr) who undertook a simulated flight in an environmental chamber from sea level (0.209 FIo₂) to 1524 m (0.174 FIo₂), 2438 m (0.156 FIo₂), and 3658 m (0.133 FIo₂), over approximately 2 h. They experienced normobaric hypoxia, environmental cooling and headwind, completing logical reasoning, mannikin, mathematical processing, Stroop Color-Word and Tower Puzzle tasks; as well as measures of risk-taking (BART), mood (POMS), and subjective experience.RESULTS: Results were compared to ten controls, matched by age, sex, and flying experience. Physiological measures were oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, ventilation, heart rate, oxygen saturation, rectal and skin temperatures, blood glucose, blood lactate, and urine production. There were no significant differences between pilots and controls at any altitude. Results were heterogenous within and between individuals. As altitude increased, oxygen consumption and minute volume increased significantly, while oxygen saturations fell (98.3% [baseline] to 88.5% [peak]). Rectal temperatures fell by a statistically (but not clinically) significant amount (37.6°C to 37.3°C), while finger skin temperatures dropped steeply (32.2°C to 13.9°C).DISCUSSION: Results suggest cognitive impairment is unlikely to be a primary cause of pilot error during paragliding flights (of less than 2 h, below 3658 m), though hand protection requires improvement.Wilkes M, Long G, Massey H, Eglin C, Tipton MJ. Cognitive function in simulated paragliding flight. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2019; 90(10):851-859.

Differential roles of polar orbital prefrontal cortex and parietal lobes in logical reasoning with neutral and negative emotional content

To answer the question of how brain pathology affects reasoning about negative emotional content, we administered a disjunctive logical reasoning task involving arguments with neutral content (e.g. Either there are tigers or women in NYC, but not both; There are no tigers in NYC; There are women in NYC) and emotionally laden content (e.g. Either there are pedophiles or politicians in Texas, but not both; There are politicians in Texas; There are no pedophiles in Texas) to 92 neurological patients with focal lesions to various parts of the brain. A Voxel Lesion Symptom Mapping (VLSM) analysis identified 16 patients, all with lesions to the orbital polar prefrontal cortex (BA 10 & 11), as being selectively impaired in the emotional reasoning condition. Another 17 patients, all with lesions to the parietal cortex, were identified as being impaired in the neutral content condition. The reasoning scores of these two patient groups, along with 23 matched normal controls, underwent additional analysis to explore the effect of belief bias. This analysis revealed that the differences identified above were largely driven by trials where there was an incongruency between the believability of the conclusion and the validity of the argument (i.e. valid argument/false conclusion or invalid argument/true conclusion). Patients with lesions to polar orbital prefrontal cortex underperformed in incongruent emotional content trials and over performed in incongruent neutral content trials (compared to both normal controls and patients with parietal lobe lesions). Patients with lesions to parietal lobes underperformed normal controls (at a trend level) in neutral trials where there was a congruency between the believability of the conclusion and the validity of the argument (i.e. valid argument/true conclusion or invalid argument/false conclusion). We conclude that lesions to the polar orbital prefrontal cortex (i) prevent these patients from enjoying any emotionally induced cognitive boost, and (ii) block the belief bias processing route in the neutral condition. Lesions to parietal lobes result in a generalized impairment in logical reasoning with neutral content.

Digital Learning As Enhanced Learning Processing? Cognitive Evidence for New insight of Smart Learning.

Large use of technology improved quality of life across aging and favoring the development of digital skills. Digital skills can be considered an enhancing to human cognitive activities. New research trend is about the impact of the technology in the elaboration information processing of the children. We wanted to analyze the influence of technology in early age evaluating the impact on cognition. We investigated the performance of a sample composed of n. 191 children in school age distributed in two groups as users: high digital users and low digital users. We measured the verbal and visuoperceptual cognitive performance of children by n. 8 standardized psychological tests and ad hoc self-report questionnaire. Results have evidenced the influence of digital exposition on cognitive development: the cognitive performance is looked enhanced and better developed: high digital users performed better in naming, semantic, visual memory and logical reasoning tasks. Our finding confirms the data present in literature and suggests the strong impact of the technology using not only in the social, educational and quality of life of the people, but also it outlines the functionality and the effect of the digital exposition in early age; increased cognitive abilities of the children tailor digital skilled generation with enhanced cognitive processing toward to smart learning.

Lesions to polar/orbital prefrontal cortex selectively impair reasoning about emotional material

While it is widely accepted that lesions to orbital prefrontal cortex lead to emotion related disruptions and poor decision-making, there is very little patient data on this issue involving actual logical reasoning tasks. We tested patients with circumscribed, focal lesions largely confined to polar/orbital prefrontal cortex (BA 10 & 11) (N=17) on logical reasoning tasks involving neutral and emotional content, and compared their performance to that of an age and education-matched normal control group (N=22) and a posterior lesion control group (N=24). Our results revealed a significant group by content interaction driven by a selective impairment in the polar/orbital prefrontal cortex group compared to healthy normal controls and to the parietal patient group, in the emotional content reasoning trials. Subsequent analyses of congruent and incongruent reasoning trials indicated that this impairment was driven by the poor performance of patients with polar/orbital lesions in the incongruent trials. We conclude that the polar/orbital prefrontal cortex plays a critical role in filtering emotionally charged content from the material before it is passed on to the reasoning system in lateral/dorsal regions of prefrontal cortex. Where unfiltered content is passed to the reasoning engine, either as a result of pathology (as in the case of our patients) or as a result of individual differences, reasoning performance suffers.

Acute Tension-Type Headaches Are Associated with Impaired Cognitive Function and More Negative Mood.

Research has shown that migraine is often associated with memory problems. There have, however, been few studies of tension-type headache (TTH) and cognition. People who report frequent headaches often report high levels of negative affect. However, less is known about the acute effects of TTH on mood. To address these gaps in our knowledge, two studies examined the effects of acute TTH on -cognitive performance and mood. Both studies involved one group of participants completing a battery of tasks when they had a TTH and when they had no headache. Another group (the control) was headache free on both occasions. Duration of the headache was >30 min and <4 h. In the "no headache" condition, the participants were headache free for at least 24 h. In the first study, 12 participants (6 with TTH and 6 controls) completed a computerized battery measuring mood and aspects of cognition. In the second study, 22 participants (7 TTH, 5 after TTH, and 10 controls) completed paper and pencil mood and cognitive tasks. In the first study, having a headache was associated with an increase in negative affect both before and after the tasks. Three performance tasks showed impairments when the participants had headaches: logical reasoning was slower and less accurate; retrieval from semantic memory was slower; and reaction times in the categorical search task were slower. Results from the second study confirmed the global increase in negative affect when the person has a TTH. The results confirmed the impairments in the logical reasoning and semantic processing tasks, and also showed that those with a TTH had greater psychomotor slowing and were more easily distracted. Effects did not continue after the headache had gone. Two small-scale studies have shown that TTH is associated with negative affect and impaired cognitive function. It is now of interest to determine whether OTC treatment can remove these effects.

Inhibition of misleading heuristics as a core mechanism for typical cognitive development: evidence from behavioural and brain-imaging studies.

Cognitive development is generally conceived as incremental with knowledge of increasing complexity acquired throughout childhood and adolescence. However, several studies have now demonstrated not only that infants possess complex cognitive abilities but also that older children, adolescents, and adults tend to make systematic errors even in simple logical reasoning tasks. Therefore, one of the main issues for any theory of typical cognitive development is to provide an explanation of why at some age and in some contexts children, adolescents, and adults do not express a knowledge or cognitive principle that they already acquired when they were younger. In this review, we present convergent behavioural and neurocognitive evidence that cognitive development is more similar to a non-linear dynamic system than to a linear, stage-like system. In this theoretical framework, errors can emerge in problems similar to the ones infants or youngchildren were succeeding when older children, adolescents, and adults rely on a misleading heuristic rather than on the correct logical algorithm to solve such problems. And the core mechanism for overcoming these errors is inhibitory control (i.e. the ability to inhibit the misleading heuristics). Therefore, typical cognitive development relies not only on the ability to acquire knowledge of incremental complexity but also to inhibit previously acquired knowledge.

Cognitive Skill Analysis for Students through Problem Solving Based on Data Mining Techniques

Aim of this paper to discover the knowledge in effort to identify some of most accumulated information. The problem solving schema such as logical reasoning, Numerical ability and personality task questions are framed by the category of cognitive skills which is analyzed by predicting method in data mining techniques. In this paper focuses data mining techniques to evaluate the student skills based on problem solving resources which can be analysed by Naïve Bayes Classification, FP tree Growth association and Kmeans (kernel) clustering techniques, experimented in rapid miner.

Neural Mechanisms of the Belief-bias Effect Based on Dual Process Theories

The belief bias effect refers to a phenomenon that the performance of participants in a logical reasoning task is influenced by their prior beliefs. As dual process theory assumes, this effect is based on the conflict between the belief system and the analytic system. Recent studies from cognitive neuroscience have provided strong evidence for this view. Specifically, on the one hand, neuroimaging studies (in which from varied perceptive) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) have demonstrated that the inhibition of belief-bias is associated with increased activation of the right prefrontal cortex (PFC). On the other hand, studies using event-related potentials (ERPs) have found that some ERP components (e.g., late positive component and late negative component) were associated with the cognitive process of belief-bias effect in different reasoning types. Further studies should be concerned with the following aspects: working memory, different stages of processing, believability of premises, analysis of experiment, ecological validity of the materials, thinking training, and so on.

Belief bias during reasoning among religious believers and skeptics

We provide evidence that religious skeptics, as compared to believers, are both more reflective and effective in logical reasoning tasks. While recent studies have reported a negative association between an analytic cognitive style and religiosity, they focused exclusively on accuracy, making it difficult to specify potential underlying cognitive mechanisms. The present study extends the previous research by assessing both performance and response times on quintessential logical reasoning problems (syllogisms). Those reporting more religious skepticism made fewer reasoning errors than did believers. This finding remained significant after controlling for general cognitive ability, time spent on the problems, and various demographic variables. Crucial for the purpose of exploring underlying mechanisms, response times indicated that skeptics also spent more time reasoning than did believers. This novel finding suggests a possible role of response slowing during analytic problem solving as a component of cognitive style that promotes overriding intuitive first impressions. Implications for using additional processing measures, such as response time, to investigate individual differences in cognitive style are discussed.

Disengaging From a Task

This study tests the assumption that disengagement from a task indicates poor self-control, especially following little progress. A total of 120 undergraduate students worked on Sudoku puzzles, a logical reasoning task for which progress could be measured. A binary logistic regression revealed a three-way interaction among dispositional self-control, dispositional self-awareness, and actual task progress in predicting disengagement versus persistence. Among individuals with high self-awareness, greater self-control was associated with significantly higher probabilities of task persistence during high task progress. Alternatively, greater self-control was associated with lower probabilities of task persistence during low task progress among individuals with high self-awareness. These results support theories of adaptive goal disengagement suggesting that how individuals apply control is dependent on factors other than self-regulatory capacity. Specifically, assessments of progress among highly self-aware individuals may facilitate adaptive self-regulation.

Temperament and Character Correlates of Neuropsychological Performance

We investigate the association between temperament and character dimensions, on the one hand, and computerised neuropsychological test performance, on the other hand. Temperament and character dimensions were operationalised as scores on the subscales of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), a 240-item measure that is based on the psychobiological theory of personality. Neuropsychological outcomes were measured on six computerised tests of executive functioning and abstract reasoning from the University of Pennsylvania Computerised Neuropsychological Test Battery (PennCNP). The executive and abstract reasoning tasks included a test of Motor Praxis (MPRAXIS), the Penn Abstraction, Inhibition and Working Memory Task (AIM), the Letter-N-Back (LNB2), the Penn Conditional Exclusion Task (PCET), the Penn Short Logical Reasoning Task (SPVRT) and the Short Raven's Progressive Matrices (SRAVEN). Results from this exploratory study yielded significant associations between neuropsychological performance and temperament and character traits. The temperament traits of Harm Avoidance and Reward Dependence were positively correlated with reaction time on the AIM and the SPVRT. The character dimension of Self-Transcendence was significantly associated with performance accuracy on the AIM and the temperament dimension of Novelty Seeking was inversely related to performance accuracy on the LNB2. These results confirm the importance of addressing the temperament and character correlates of neuropsychological performance in both clinical and non-clinical studies.

Explaining more by drawing on less

AbstractOne of the most striking features of “Bayesian rationality” is the detail with which behavior on logical reasoning tasks can now be predicted and explained. This detail is surprising, given the state of the field 10 to 15 years ago, and it has been brought about by a theoretical program that largely ignores consideration of cognitive processes, that is, any kind of internal behavior that generates overt responding. It seems that an increase in explanatory power can be achieved by restricting a psychological theory.

The Skin-Conductance Component of Error Correction in a Logical Reasoning Task

La Réponse ÉlectroDermale (RED) a été mesurée à deux reprises chez les mêmes sujets qui réalisaient une tâche de logique déductive, d’abord en commettant une erreur de raisonnement et ensuite, après un apprentissage, soit en répondant correctement, soit en persévérant dans l’erreur selon les sujets. La RED s’est accrue entre les deux sessions et était significativement plus importante chez les sujets qui corrigeaient leur erreur initiale de raisonnement que chez les autres, révélant la forte interconnexion entre le raisonnement logique et les indices d’états somatiques impliqués dans l’émotion. Cela corrobore les résultats d’études antérieures d’imagerie cérébrale réalisées dans notre groupe et indiquant que l’accès à la logique déductive dépend du cortex préfrontal ventromédian droit dont on connaît l’implication dans la représentation afférente de la RED et dans l’intégration émotion-cognition.

Stress, subjective experience and cognitive performance during exposure to noise and vibration

This study investigates the effects of noise and whole-body vibration on saliva cortisol levels and subjectively rated difficulty and stress while performing cognitive tasks. In the first experiment, 24 men completed a logical reasoning task and a short-term memory task while, on separate occasions, being exposed to noise, vibration, combined stimuli, and control conditions. The environmental stimuli were designed to simulate the exposure from a forestry vehicle. The main finding was that participants made significantly higher ratings of stress when the noise stimulus was present, either alone or in combination with vibration. There were, however, some indications that noise sensitivity might moderate both subjective and objective measures such as higher ratings of stress and elevated cortisol levels in high noise sensitive participants. A second experiment was conducted where noise sensitivity was used as an inclusion criterion. A low sensitive and a high sensitive group were created, each containing 16 participants. The results of the second experiment, found only marginal effects of noise sensitivity and no effects at all on performance or cortisol. Increased ratings of stress and difficulty were found whenever either environmental stressor was present, whether by itself or in combination. The same result was seen even when pooling the data from both experiments. The main conclusion of the study is that relatively short exposures to noise and vibration typical of those levels that are found in industrial vehicles do not significantly affect performance in cognitive tasks nor saliva cortisol levels even if work in these environments can be experienced as more difficult or stressful.

The mental possible worlds mechanism and the lobster problem: an analysis of a complex GRE logical reasoning task

An attempt is made to provide a new psychological mechanism, the mental possible worlds mechanism (MPWM), for analysing complex reasoning tasks such as the logical reasoning tasks in the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). MPWM captures the interaction between syntactic and semantic processes in reasoning, and so it also technically supports the new mental metalogic theory which studies the bridging relations between two major competing theories in the field, mental logic and mental models, whose accounts are also discussed. An empirical study of MPWM is also given.

Effect of Blood Pressure and Diabetes Mellitus on Cognitive and Physical Functions in Older Adults: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly Cohort

To evaluate the effect of blood pressure (BP) and diabetes mellitus (DM) on cognitive and physical performance in older, independent-living adults. Longitudinal study with secondary data analysis from the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly randomized intervention trial. Six field sites in the United States. Two thousand eight hundred two independent-living subjects aged 65 to 94. Cognitive functions in different domains and physical functions measured using activities of daily living, instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and the physical function subscale from the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (SF-36) Health Survey. After the first annual examination, hypertension was associated with a faster decline in performance on logical reasoning tasks (ability to solve problems following a serial pattern), whereas DM was associated with accelerated decline on the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (speed of processing). The reasoning and Digit Symbol Substitution test are executive function tasks thought to be related to frontal-lobe function. Hypertension and DM were associated with a significantly faster pace of decline on the SF-36 physical function component score. Individuals with DM had a faster pace of decline in IADL functioning than nondiabetic subjects. There was no evidence for an interaction between BP and DM on cognitive or physical function decline. Hypertension and DM are associated with accelerated decline in executive measures and physical function in independent-living elderly subjects. Further research is needed to determine whether cardiovascular risk modification ameliorates cognitive and functional decline in elderly people.

Association between formal operational thought and executive function as measured by the Tower of Hanoi-Revised

Executive functions have been defined in the neuropsychological literature as those cognitive processes that underlie future-oriented, goal-directed behavior such as planning, working memory, inhibition, and self-monitoring. Piaget's final stage of cognitive development, formal operations, involves a systematic approach to problem solving that appears to overlap with many cognitive skills associated with executive function. The current study was designed to assess the degree to which formal operational reasoning, as measured by the Logical Reasoning Task (LRT; Burney, 1974) predicted performance on one measure of executive function, the Tower of Hanoi-Revised (TOH-R; ( Welsh & Huizinga, 2001) [Welsh, M. C., & Huizinga, M. (2001). The development and preliminary validation of the Tower of Hanoi-Revised. Assessment, 8 (2), 167–176]. A sample of 47 college students were administered the TOH-R, LRT, as well as tests of working memory, procedural learning, and fluid reasoning. The results indicated significant associations between formal operational thought and both fluid reasoning and TOH-R performance. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis confirmed that formal operational thought as demonstrated on the LRT was a stronger predictor of TOH-R performance than was fluid intelligence. These findings suggest that both inductive reasoning and the hypothetico-deductive processes characteristic of formal operations contribute to executive function.

Information processing and reasoning with premises that are empirically false: interference, working memory, and processing speed.

In this study, we looked at the contributions of individual differences in susceptibility to interference and working memory to logical reasoning with premises that were empirically false (i.e., not necessarily true). A total of 97 university students were given a sentence completion task for which a subset of stimuli was designed to generate inappropriate semantic activation that interfered with the correct response, a measure of working memory capacity, and a series of logical reasoning tasks with premises that were not always true. The results indicate that susceptibility to interference, as measured by the error rate on the relevant subset of the sentence completion task, and working memory independently account for variation in reasoning performance. The participants who made more errors in the relevant portion of the sentence completion task also showed more empirical intrusions in the deductive reasoning task, even when the effects of working memory were partialed out. Working memory capacity was more clearly related to processes involved in generating uncertainty responses to inferences for which there was no certain conclusion. A comparison of the results of this study with studies of children's reasoning suggests that adults are capable of more selective executive processes than are children. An analysis of latency measures on the sentence completion task indicated that high working memory participants who made no errors on the sentence completion task used a strategy that involved slower processing speed, as compared with participants with similar levels of working memory who did make errors. In contrast, low working memory participants who made no errors on the sentence completion task had relatively shorter reaction times than did comparable participants who did make errors.

Logical reasoning in schizotypal personality

It was examined whether psychotic-like personality traits in a sample of 205 college students could predict logical reasoning deficits, akin to those seen in schizophrenia. The participants were tested on their ability to assess the logical validity of premises (Logical Reasoning Task), and completed a multi-dimensional schizotypy inventory (O-LIFE). Low accuracy was associated with increased levels of disorganized schizotypy (‘Cognitive Disorganization’), while elevated errors were associated with increased levels of positive (‘Unusual Experiences’), negative (‘Introvertive Anhedonia’) and impulsive (‘Impulsivity Non-conformity’) schizotypy. Nevertheless, multiple regression analyses revealed that negative schizotypy was retained as the only significant predictor after performance was corrected for random guessing, and the contribution of the average amount of time spent on each premise was controlled. The results suggest that, although most schizotypy dimensions have a detrimental effect on reasoning performance, possibly due to disadvantageous test-taking strategies, negative schizotypy is the most reliable predictor of logical reasoning deficits. It is proposed that social/interpersonal schizotypal traits, like negative symptoms of schizophrenia, are accompanied by deficient executive functions of working memory, which appear to undermine, inter alia, logical reasoning processing.

Increasing Task Difficulty Facilitates the Cerebral Compensatory Response to Total Sleep Deprivation

To test the role of task difficulty in the cerebral compensatory response after total sleep deprivation (TSD). Subjects performed a modified version of Baddeley's logical reasoning task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging twice: once after normal sleep and once following 35 hours of TSD. The task was modified to parametrically manipulate task difficulty. Inpatient General Clinical Research Center and outpatient functional magnetic resonance imaging center. 16 young adults (7 women; mean age, 27.6 +/- 6.1 years; education, 15.4 +/- 1.8 years) were included in the final analyses. None. Behaviorally, subjects performed the same after TSD as while well rested. Neuroimaging data revealed a linear increase in cerebral response with a linear increase in task demands in several brain regions after normal sleep. Even stronger linear responses were found after TSD in several brain regions, including bilateral inferior parietal lobes, bilateral temporal cortex, and left inferior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Task difficulty facilitates the cerebral compensatory response observed following TSD. Compensation manifests as both new regions that did not show significant responses to task demands in the well-rested condition, as well as stronger responses within regions typically underlying task performance. The possible significance of these 2 types of responses should be explored further, as should the importance of the parietal lobes for cognitive performance after TSD.