Achieving abstraction: Generating far analogies promotes relational reasoning in children.

Analogical reasoning is essential for transfer by supporting recognition of relational similarity. However, not all analogies are created equal. The source and target can be similar (near), or quite different (far). Previous research suggests that close comparisons facilitate children's relational abstraction. On the other hand, evidence from adults indicates that the process of solving far analogies may be a more effective scaffold for transfer of a relational strategy. We explore whether engaging with far analogies similarly induces such a strategy in preschoolers. Children were provided with the opportunity to solve either a near or far spatial analogy using a pair of puzzle boxes that varied in perceptual similarity (Experiment 1), or to participate in a control task (Experiment 2). All groups were then presented with an ambiguous spatial reasoning task featuring both object and relational matches. We were interested in the relationship between near and far conditions and two effects: (a) children's tendency to spontaneously draw an analogy when solving the initial puzzle, and (b) their tendency to privilege relational matches over object matches in a subsequent, ambiguous task. Although children were more likely to spontaneously draw an analogy in the near condition, those who attempted the far analogy were more likely to privilege a relational match on the subsequent task. We argue that the process of solving a far analogy-regardless of a learner's spontaneous success in identifying the relation-contextualizes an otherwise ambiguous learning problem, making it easier for children to access and apply relational hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record

Eye movements provide insight into individual differences in children's analogical reasoning strategies.

Analogical reasoning is considered a key driver of cognitive development and is a strong predictor of academic achievement. However, it is difficult for young children, who are prone to focusing on perceptual and semantic similarities among items rather than relational commonalities. For example, in a classic A:B::C:? propositional analogy task, children must inhibit attention towards items that are visually or semantically similar to C, and instead focus on finding a relational match to the A:B pair. Competing theories of reasoning development attribute improvements in children's performance to gains in either executive functioning or semantic knowledge. Here, we sought to identify key drivers of the development of analogical reasoning ability by using eye gaze patterns to infer problem-solving strategies used by six-year-old children and adults. Children had a greater tendency than adults to focus on the immediate task goal and constrain their search based on the C item. However, large individual differences existed within children, and more successful reasoners were able to maintain the broader goal in mind and constrain their search by initially focusing on the A:B pair before turning to C and the response choices. When children adopted this strategy, their attention was drawn more readily to the correct response option. Individual differences in children's reasoning ability were also related to rule-guided behavior but not to semantic knowledge. These findings suggest that both developmental improvements and individual differences in performance are driven by the use of more efficient reasoning strategies regarding which information is prioritized from the start, rather than the ability to disengage from attractive lure items.

Neuroscientific insights into the development of analogical reasoning.

Analogical reasoning, or the ability to find correspondences between entities based on shared relationships, supports knowledge acquisition. As such, the development of this ability during childhood is thought to promote learning. Here, we sought to better understand the mechanisms by which analogical reasoning about semantic relations improves over childhood and adolescence (e.g. chalk is to chalkboard as pen is to…?). We hypothesized that age-related differences would manifest as differences in the brain regions associated with one or more of the following cognitive functions: (1) controlled semantic retrieval, or the ability to retrieve task-relevant semantic associations; (2) response control, or the ability to override the tendency to respond to a salient distractor; and/or (3) relational integration, or the ability to consider jointly two mental relations. In order to test these hypotheses, we analyzed patterns of fMRI activation during performance of a pictorial propositional analogy task across 95 typically developing children between the ages of 6 and 18 years old. Despite large age-related differences in task performance, particularly over ages 6-10 but through to around age 14, participants across the whole age range recruited a common network of frontal, parietal and temporal regions. However, activation in a brain region that has been implicated in controlled semantic retrieval - left anterior prefrontal cortex (BA 47/45) - was positively correlated with age, and also with performance after controlling for age. This finding indicates that improved performance over middle childhood and early adolescence on this analogical reasoning task is driven largely by improvements in the ability to selectively retrieve task-relevant semantic relationships.

Eye Movements Reveal Optimal Strategies for Analogical Reasoning.

Analogical reasoning refers to the process of drawing inferences on the basis of the relational similarity between two domains. Although this complex cognitive ability has been the focus of inquiry for many years, most models rely on measures that cannot capture individuals' thought processes moment by moment. In the present study, we used participants' eye movements to investigate reasoning strategies in real time while solving visual propositional analogy problems (A:B::C:D). We included both a semantic and a perceptual lure on every trial to determine how these types of distracting information influence reasoning strategies. Participants spent more time fixating the analogy terms and the target relative to the other response choices, and made more saccades between the A and B items than between any other items. Participants' eyes were initially drawn to perceptual lures when looking at response choices, but they nonetheless performed the task accurately. We used participants' gaze sequences to classify each trial as representing one of three classic analogy problem solving strategies and related strategy usage to analogical reasoning performance. A project-first strategy, in which participants first extrapolate the relation between the AB pair and then generalize that relation for the C item, was both the most commonly used strategy as well as the optimal strategy for solving visual analogy problems. These findings provide new insight into the role of strategic processing in analogical problem solving.

Hemispheric differences in relational reasoning: novel insights based on an old technique.

Relational reasoning, or the ability to integrate multiple mental relations to arrive at a logical conclusion, is a critical component of higher cognition. A bilateral brain network involving lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices has been consistently implicated in relational reasoning. Some data suggest a preferential role for the left hemisphere in this form of reasoning, whereas others suggest that the two hemispheres make important contributions. To test for a hemispheric asymmetry in relational reasoning, we made use of an old technique known as visual half-field stimulus presentation to manipulate whether stimuli were presented briefly to one hemisphere or the other. Across two experiments, 54 neurologically healthy young adults performed a visuospatial transitive inference task. Pairs of colored shapes were presented rapidly in either the left or right visual hemifield as participants maintained central fixation, thereby isolating initial encoding to the contralateral hemisphere. We observed a left-hemisphere advantage for encoding a series of ordered visuospatial relations, but both hemispheres contributed equally to task performance when the relations were presented out of order. To our knowledge, this is the first study to reveal hemispheric differences in relational encoding in the intact brain. We discuss these findings in the context of a rich literature on hemispheric asymmetries in cognition.

Evolutionary and developmental changes in the lateral frontoparietal network: a little goes a long way for higher-level cognition.

Relational thinking, or the ability to represent the relations between items, is widespread in the animal kingdom. However, humans are unparalleled in their ability to engage in the higher-order relational thinking required for reasoning and other forms of abstract thought. Here we propose that the versatile reasoning skills observed in humans can be traced back to developmental and evolutionary changes in the lateral frontoparietal network (LFPN). We first identify the regions within the LFPN that are most strongly linked to relational thinking, and show that stronger communication between these regions over the course of development supports improvements in relational reasoning. We then explore differences in the LFPN between humans and other primate species that could explain species differences in the capacity for relational reasoning. We conclude that fairly small neuroanatomical changes in specific regions of the LFPN and their connections have led to big ontogenetic and phylogenetic changes in cognition.

Multilevel induction of categories: venomous snakes hijack the learning of lower category levels.

The induction of categories and concepts from examples-which plays an important role in how people come to organize and understand the world-can happen at multiple levels, but how do competing values at these different levels affect learning? Using perceptually rich images of snakes, we asked participants to attend to either the snakes' specific genus or a broader categorization and then tested induction at both levels. We also varied the intrinsic value of the broader categorization (high value: whether the snake was venomous; low value: whether it was tropical). We found an interaction between study instruction and intrinsic value: Participants in the low-value condition were better able to induce the level they were instructed to attend to (i.e., genus or broader category) than to induce the level they were not instructed to attend to, whereas participants in the high-value condition, regardless of the level of categorization they were instructed to attend to, were significantly better at learning the broad categorization (for them, whether the snake was venomous) than were participants in the low-value condition. Our results suggest that intrinsically valuable features can disrupt the intentional learning of other, task-relevant information, but enhance the incidental learning of the same information.

When reasoning modifies memory: schematic assimilation triggered by analogical mapping.

Analogical mapping highlights shared relations that link 2 situations, potentially at the expense of information that does not fit the dominant pattern of correspondences. To investigate whether analogical mapping can alter subsequent recognition memory for features of a source analog, we performed 2 experiments with 4-term proportional analogies (A:B::C:D), using problems based on cartoon figures varying on 4 visual dimensions. The source analog (A:B) was encoded before the reasoner was told which dimension was relevant to the analogy. After encoding, the A:B pair disappeared, 1 randomly selected dimension was specified as the basis for an analogical decision, and the target (C:D) was presented. A decision about the validity of the analogy was then made, after which memory for the A:B pair was assessed by a recognition test. In Experiment 1, we found that participants' recognition memory was reduced for lures involving a feature change on a dimension initially inconsistent with the analogical decision relative to a change on a dimension that had been consistent with it. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that this memory decrement occurred only when the change in the initially inconsistent feature caused the lure to be coherent with the overall schematic pattern of relational correspondences. These findings suggest that analogical reasoning can trigger changes in the memory representation of a source analog stored in memory such that subsequent recognition is guided by a relational schema.

Far-out thinking: generating solutions to distant analogies promotes relational thinking.

Is it possible to induce a mind-set that will affect relational thinking in a subsequent reasoning task involving unrelated materials? We investigated whether evaluating the validity of verbal analogies (Experiment 1a) or generating solutions for them (Experiment 1b) could induce a relational mind-set that would transfer to an unrelated picture-mapping task. The verbal analogies were based on either near or far semantic relations. We found that generating (but not evaluating) solutions for semantically distant analogies increased the proportion of relational mappings on the transfer task, even after we controlled for fluid intelligence and response time. Solving near analogies did not produce transfer. Generation of solutions to far analogies appears to provide a potent method for triggering a mind-set that can enhance relational thinking in a different task.

The floor effect: impoverished spatial memory for elevator buttons.

People typically remember objects to which they have frequently been exposed, suggesting that memory is a by-product of perception. However, prior research has shown that people have exceptionally poor memory for the features of some objects (e.g., coins) to which they have been exposed over the course of many years. Here, we examined how people remember the spatial layout of the buttons on a frequently used elevator panel, to determine whether physical interaction (rather than simple exposure) would ensure the incidental encoding of spatial information. Participants who worked in an eight-story office building displayed very poor recall for the elevator panel but above-chance performance on a recognition test. Performance was related to how often and how recently the person had used the elevator. In contrast to their poor memory for the spatial layout of the elevator buttons, most people readily recalled small distinctive graffiti on the elevator walls. In a more implicit test, the majority were able to locate their office floor and the eighth floor button when asked to point toward these buttons when in the actual elevator, with the button labels covered. However, identification was very poor for other floors (including the first floor), suggesting that even frequent interaction with information does not always lead to accurate spatial memory. These findings have implications for understanding the complex relationships among attention, expertise, and memory.

Fire drill: inattentional blindness and amnesia for the location of fire extinguishers.

Fire extinguishers can save lives and are placed in locations that make them easily accessible and in plain view in case of an emergency. However, despite having viewed these bright red objects many times, people may be unaware of their precise locations or even of the fact that they have seen them so often in their workplace environment. We tested the ability of occupants of an office building to recall the location of the nearest fire extinguisher, as well as other objects (e.g., clock, drinking fountain). Despite years of exposure to it, a majority failed to remember the location of the nearest fire extinguisher, although they were able to locate it relatively quickly when asked to search for it. The results support an important distinction between seeing and noticing objects and reveal a novel form of inattentional amnesia for salient objects. The study also created an important learning event via failed retrieval, which could be essential to survival.

The impact of semantic distance and induced stress on analogical reasoning: a neurocomputational account.

In a study of reasoning with four-term verbal analogy problems, we explored the relationship between the effects of an acute, mild stressor and the complexity of the reasoning process. Participants judged whether analogy problems in the form A:B :: C:D were valid or invalid, on the basis of whether the relation in the A:B term matched that in the C:D term. Half of the problems contained a C:D pair semantically near the A:B pair (e.g., NOSE:SCENT :: TONGUE:TASTE), and the other half contained ones semantically far from A:B (e.g., NOSE:SCENT :: ANTENNA:SIGNAL). After an initial block without stress, participants were randomly assigned to count backward by 13 s from 1,000 while being told to go faster, or to count forward by 1 s from 0. The stress-induced participants reported a significant increase in state anxiety as compared to controls immediately after the mental arithmetic task. Stressed participants performed less accurately (as measured by d') on both near and far analogy problems, mainly due to an increase in false alarms. We were able to model the influence of semantic distance using the "learning and inference with schemas and analogies" (LISA) model. Our findings indicated that even mild increases in stress impair analogical reasoning. However, the decrement does not seem to directly involve the integration of relations, but rather is due to a shift in decision strategy: Under stress, people show an increased tendency to endorse analogies as valid when the terms in the individual pairs are semantically related to each other, even if the overall analogical relationship is not valid.

Preliminary findings on the interactive effects of IV ethanol and IV nicotine on human behavior and cognition: a laboratory study.

INTRODUCTION: There are mixed reports on nicotine's effects on alcohol-induced impairment in cognitive performance and behavior in humans. The main objective of this study was to characterize the interactive effects of acute intravenous (IV) alcohol and nicotine administration on behavior and cognition in healthy nonsmokers. METHODS: Healthy subjects aged 21-44 years participated in 3 test days. On each test day, they received in a double-blind randomized manner one of three IV alcohol infusion conditions using a "clamp": placebo, targeted breathalyzer of 40 mg%, or targeted breathalyzer of 80 mg%. Alcohol infusion was delivered over 20 min and lasted for 120 min. They also received both placebo and active nicotine in a fixed order delivered intravenously. Placebo nicotine was delivered first over 10 min at the timepoint when the breath alcohol was "clamped"; active nicotine (1.0 mcg/kg/min) was delivered for 10 min, 70 min after the alcohol infusion was clamped. Subjective effects of alcohol were measured using the Biphasic Alcohol Effects Scale and the Number of Drinks Scale. Cognitive inhibition and attention were measured by the Continuous Performance Task-Identical Pairs and working memory by the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (RAVLT). RESULTS: Nicotine significantly reversed subjective intoxication and sedation of alcohol at the low dose. Alcohol impaired performance on the RAVLT, and nicotine further impaired verbal learning and recall at both doses of alcohol. CONCLUSIONS: The data showed that nicotine had an effect on subjective alcohol effects but did not reverse and actually worsened alcohol-induced deficits in memory.

Effects of haloperidol on the behavioral, subjective, cognitive, motor, and neuroendocrine effects of Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol in humans.

INTRODUCTION: Cannabinoids produce a spectrum of effects in humans including euphoria, cognitive impairments, psychotomimetic effects, and perceptual alterations. The extent to which dopaminergic systems contribute to the effects of Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta-9-THC) remains unclear. This study evaluated whether pretreatment with a dopamine receptor antagonist altered the effects of Delta-9-THC in humans. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In a 2-test-day double-blind study, 28 subjects including healthy subjects (n = 17) and frequent users of cannabis (n = 11) were administered active (0.057 mg/kg) or placebo oral haloperidol in random order followed 90 and 215 min later by fixed order intravenous administration of placebo (vehicle) and active (0.0286 mg/kg) Delta-9-THC, respectively. RESULTS: Consistent with previous reports, intravenous Delta-9-THC produced psychotomimetic effects, perceptual alterations, and subjective effects including "high." Delta-9-THC also impaired verbal recall and attention. Haloperidol pretreatment did not reduce any of the behavioral effects of Delta-9-THC. Haloperidol worsened the immediate free and delayed free and cued recall deficits produced by Delta-9-THC. Haloperidol and Delta-9-THC worsened distractibility and vigilance. Neither drug impaired performance on a motor screening task, the Stockings of Cambridge task, or the delayed match to sample task. Frequent users had lower baseline plasma prolactin levels and blunted Delta-9-THC induced memory impairments. CONCLUSIONS: The deleterious effects of haloperidol pretreatment on the cognitive effects of Delta-9-THC are consistent with the preclinical literature in suggesting crosstalk between DAergic and CBergic systems. However, it is unlikely that DA D(2) receptor mechanisms play a major role in mediating the psychotomimetic and perceptual altering effects of Delta-9-THC. Further investigation is warranted to understand the basis of the psychotomimetic effects of Delta-9-THC and to better understand the crosstalk between DAergic and CBergic systems.