The Influence Of Distance Of Thematic And Taxonomic Relations On Inductive Reasoning

Inductive reasoning,which is indispensable in human cognition,is a process of inference from a particular event or fact to a general event or a fact.It is a process of generalization of knowledge or experience.It has been found that human brain activity is affected by semantic distance in analogical reasoning.However,whether semantic distance affects inductive reasoning and its underlying neural mechanisms remains unclear.In this paper,three studies are conducted to explore the influence of distance between taxonomic and thematic relationship on inductive inference or categorization and property process and its neural mechanism.In the experiment,the subjects were first presented with a premise(for example,the panda has X1,that is,the panda has the property of X1),and then the concluding sentence(e.g.,the bamboo has X1? That means bamboo has the property of X1?)The subjects are required to judge the conclusion sentence according to the premise.Among them,there are four kinds of relationships between the premise and the conclusion items(Them-Near,Them-Far,Taxo-Near,Taxo-Far).Experiment 1 was a behavior experimental study,with the purpose of inspecting the behavior differences between the thematic and the taxonomic relationship in inductive reasoning tasks.It found that the main effect of the distance is significant,that is,reaction times were faster for near thematic or taxonomic distance than far distance.This shows that there may be a distance effect in inductive reasoning,in order to further verify the experimental results and examine its neural mechanisms.In experiment 2,event-related potential(ERPs)was used to further explore the effect of distance between thematic and taxonomic relationship on inductive reasoning.The results found that in inductive reasoning,the four conditions all induced P2,N400,and LNC,which described the characteristics of the time processof the coding,semantic processing and attribute reasoning in the early period of the trial.Among them,class relationships induce a greater P2 than thematic relationships,indicating that early coding is more automated for thematic relationships,and class relationships require more time to process.Similarly,a larger N400 was induced by the thematic relationship than the taxonomic relationship.The subjects were identified at the early stage of the relationship in the P2 period,and N400 continued to process the semantic process.In addition,far distance is more N400 than near distance,and far distance semantic concepts need more cognitive resource processing than near semantic concepts;Far distance evoked larger LNC than near distance,indicating that far distance concept requires more working memory,more cognitive resources and more time to integrate the premise and conclusion objects than near distance.As a result of Experiment 2,the presentation phase contains the process of category and property,and the processing way of categories and property are still unclear.In order to further understand the brain mechanism of categories and property reasoning process.In experiment 3,the ERP features of the distance between the thematic and the taxonomic are further investigated in the process of categories and property reasoning by presenting the categories and conclusion property separately.The results show that the conclusion category presentation stage,N400(370-500ms)and LNC(570-700ms)components,far distance than near distance both induced a larger negative wave,which is similar to the experimental two conclusion that far distance concept requires more working memory,more cognitive resources and more time to integrate the premise and conclusion objects than near distance.In the conclusion stage of property presentation,the relationship between hypothesis test and integration premise and conclusion is mainly described,and the process of response is also described.Compared to taxonomic relation,the thematicrelationship evoked a larger N1,indicating that compared to taxonomic,the thematic are mainly automated processing in the subject relationship,making it possible to react quickly when the hypothesis is tested;and the near distance evoked a greater N1 than the far distance,indicating that in perceptual processing or attention allocation.The near distance needs further verification on inductive reasoning,while far distance can be judged immediately,so there is a difference between near distance and far distance in attention distribution.The above results show that there exists distance effect in inductive reasoning,and there are different ways of processing in inductive reasoning.