An ERP Study On Neural Basis Of Classic Analogical Reasoning

Using event-related potentials (ERP), the present study explored the componentprocesses of classic analogical reasoning. Through manipulating the experimentmaterials’ properties and difficulty, thestudy aimed to investigatewhether theERPwaveforms induced bydifferent experiment materialswere similar and whether thebrain regionsactivatedby different experiment materialswere similar. To get the uniqueneural basis of classic analogical reasoning, the researcher compared the results of thepresent study with previous results.The results were as follows:1. For the different materials, the accuracy and response time was different. Theword analogical reasoning tasks were more difficult than the geometric analogicalreasoning tasks; In the word analogical reasoning tasks, the generic-specificrelationship task was more difficult than the antonymous relationship task, and bothwere more difficult than the baseline task; In the geometric analogical reasoning tasks,the task varying in size was more difficult than the task varying in color, and bothwere more difficult than their respective baseline task.2. For the different materials, the ERP waveform induced by them was different.Both in infer stage and mapping stage, the ERP waveform induced by differentexperiment materials was significant different, which was reflected in the ERPcomposition、the average amplitude and the time window etc.3. For the different materials, the brain regions activated by their inferencedifferent wave were similar. In the two experiments, the brain regions activated byinference different wave were focused on the prefrontal cortex.4. For the different materials, the brain regions activated by their mappingdifferent wave were similar. In the two experiments, the brain regions activated bymapping different wave were focused on the central cortex and the left frontal cortex.