Time dissociative characteristics of numerical inductive reasoning: Behavioral and ERP evidence

Peipeng Liang*, Ning Zhong, Jinglong Wu, Shengfu Lu, Jiming LIU, Yiyu Yao

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in book/report/conference proceedingConference proceedingpeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Although some preliminary spatial localization results have been reported, the temporal characteristics of human inductive reasoning process have not been investigated. In the present study, event-related potential (ERP) was used to explore the time course of inductive reasoning process. Based on pilot studies and some other related research, we hypothesized that the process of numerical inductive reasoning is composed of number recognition, strategy formation, hypothesis generation and validation, and the above three stages are (partially) dissociable over time. A typical task of inductive reasoning, function-finding, was adopted. Induction tasks and calculation tasks were performed in the experiments, respectively. The mean reaction time of induction tasks was much longer than that of calculation tasks as expected. Statistical analysis revealed that induction showed no significant separations from calculation for the early ERP components and the slow waveforms after about 600ms, while marked dissociations appeared for the late components in the time window of about 250-600ms. It can be preliminarily concluded that, the early components before about 250ms may reflect the process of attention and number recognition, the late components may relate to strategy formation, and hypothesis generation and validation may be performed in about 600-1200ms. On the whole, the results on the behavioral data and ERP data support our hypothesis.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe 2007 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN 2007 Conference Proceedings
Pages873-879
Number of pages7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2007
Event2007 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN 2007 - Orlando, FL, United States
Duration: 12 Aug 200717 Aug 2007

Publication series

NameIEEE International Conference on Neural Networks - Conference Proceedings
ISSN (Print)1098-7576

Conference

Conference2007 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN 2007
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOrlando, FL
Period12/08/0717/08/07

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Software

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