Neuroimaging of analogical reasoning

描述(由申请者提供)：人类有能力使用类比来对范围广泛的领域的新情况进行推理。尽管类比推理是人类认知的一个重要方面，但它并没有受到认知神经学家的高度重视。在这个项目中，我们将使用功能神经成像来研究推理中的组成部分过程及其神经基础。先前的理论和经验研究已经确定了理解类比的两个关键过程：整合多种关系的能力和抑制显著分散注意力的信息。在3个拟议的实验中，这些因素将在类比问题中被系统地操纵。在每个实验中，参与者将使用事件相关设计在功能磁共振扫描过程中解决这些问题。这种方法将使我们能够确定这些不同过程的神经基础，这些过程有助于类比推理。这3项研究使用了不同的领域，以确定是否存在类比推理的一般机制。虽然先前的研究已经证明前额叶皮质对包括类比在内的推理能力很重要，但这项拟议的研究将阐明有助于类比推理的不同认知过程，以及它们在人脑中是如何组织的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Humans exhibit the ability to use analogy to make inferences about novel situations across a wide range of domains. Although analogical reasoning is an important aspect of human cognition, it has not received a great deal of attention from cognitive neuroscientists. In this project we will investigate the component processes in reasoning and their neural substrates using functional neuroimaging. Prior theoretical and empirical work has identified 2 critical processes in understanding analogies; the ability to integrate multiple relations and the inhibition of salient distracting information. In 3 proposed experiments, these factors will be systematically manipulated across analogy problems. In each experiment, participants will solve these problems during fMRI scanning using an event-related design. This approach will allow us to identify the neural substrates of these different processes that contribute to analogical reasoning. The 3 proposed studies use different domains in order to determine whether there are general mechanisms of analogical reasoning. Although prior research has demonstrated that prefrontal cortex is important for reasoning abilities, including analogy, the proposed research will shed light on the distinct cognitive processes that contribute to analogical reasoning, and how they are organized in the human brain.