From: Chris Lofting (chrislofting@ozemail.com.au)
Date: Wed 17 May 2006 - 11:12:03 GMT
Oops - left out the promised abstract re probabilities reasoning and so
'best-fit/worst-fit' mappings:
Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 11, No. 10, 954-965, October 2001 C 2001 Oxford
University Press
New Evidence for Distinct Right and Left Brain Systems for Deductive versus
Probabilistic Reasoning Lawrence M. Parsons and Daniel Osherson1 University
of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX and
1 Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
Lawrence M. Parsons, Director, Cognitive Neuroscience Program, Division of
Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and
Economic Sciences, National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Boulevard,
Arlington, VA 22230, USA.
Deductive and probabilistic reasoning are central to cognition but the
functional neuroanatomy underlying them is poorly understood. The present
study contrasted these two kinds of reasoning via positron emission
tomography. Relying on changes in instruction and psychological 'set',
deductive versus probabilistic reasoning was induced using identical
stimuli. The stimuli were arguments in propositional calculus not readily
solved via mental diagrams. Probabilistic reasoning activated mostly left
brain areas whereas deductive activated mostly right. Deduction activated
areas near right brain homologues of left language areas in middle temporal
lobe, inferior frontal cortex and basal ganglia, as well as right amygdala,
but not spatial-visual areas. Right hemisphere activations in the deduction
task cannot be explained by spill-over from overtaxed, left language areas.
Probabilistic reasoning was mostly associated with left hemispheric areas in
inferior frontal, posterior cingulate, parahippocampal, medial temporal, and
superior and medial prefrontal cortices. The foregoing regions are
implicated in recalling and evaluating a range of world knowledge,
operations required during probabilistic thought. The findings confirm that
deduction and induction are distinct processes, consistent with
psychological theories enforcing their partial separation. The results also
suggest that, except for statement decoding, deduction is largely
independent of language, and that some forms of logical thinking are
non-diagrammatic.
ALSO SEE:
Oaksford, M., and Chater, N., (2001) "The probabilistic approach to human
reasoning" IN Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol 5. No8 August 2001: 349-357
(published PRIOR to the above) From the intro:
"In a standard reasoning task, performance is compared with the inferences
people should make according to logic, so a judgement can be made on the
rationality of people's reasoning. It has been found that people make large
and systematic (i.e. non-random) errors, which suggests that humans might be
irrational. However, the probabilistic approach argues against this
interpretation" (p349)
Chris.
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