Mental models use common neural spatial structure for spatial and abstract content
Mental models use common neural spatial structure for spatial and abstract content
复制标题
DOI：
10.1038/s42003-019-0740-8
复制
发表时间：
2020-01-09
影响因子：
5.9
通讯作者：
Kraemer, David J. M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Alfred, Katherine L.;Connolly, Andrew C.;Kraemer, David J. M.
心智模型提供了一个认知框架，允许在空间上组织信息，同时对世界进行推理。然而，传递性推理研究往往依赖于感知的刺激，包含可见的空间特征，允许相关的神经表征的可能性是特定的固有空间内容。在这里，我们测试的假设，即通过传递性推理产生的心理模型的神经表征依赖于额顶叶网络的刺激内容的空间性质无关。三种模型中的内容范围从明确的视觉空间到抽象。参与者产生的所有心理模型都是基于从未直接观察到的推断关系。在这里，使用多变量表征相似性分析，我们表明，模式代表的心理模型，揭示了在上级顶叶和前额叶皮层和跨刺激类型收敛。这些结果支持了这样的结论，即独立于内容，使用心理模型的传递性推理依赖于与空间认知相关的神经机制。Alfred等人发现，通过传递性推理创建的心理模型存在共同的空间表征。这是通过探测研究参与者的神经活动模式来显示的，这些参与者的任务是推理具有不同空间内容的问题，从视觉空间到抽象。
Mental models provide a cognitive framework allowing for spatially organizing information while reasoning about the world. However, transitive reasoning studies often rely on perception of stimuli that contain visible spatial features, allowing the possibility that associated neural representations are specific to inherently spatial content. Here, we test the hypothesis that neural representations of mental models generated through transitive reasoning rely on a frontoparietal network irrespective of the spatial nature of the stimulus content. Content within three models ranges from expressly visuospatial to abstract. All mental models participants generated were based on inferred relationships never directly observed. Here, using multivariate representational similarity analysis, we show that patterns representative of mental models were revealed in both superior parietal lobule and anterior prefrontal cortex and converged across stimulus types. These results support the conclusion that, independent of content, transitive reasoning using mental models relies on neural mechanisms associated with spatial cognition.Alfred et al. find that there is a common spatial representation for mental models created through transitive reasoning. This is shown by probing patterns of neural activity in research participants tasked with reasoning problems with different spatial content, from visuospatial to abstract.