The Neural Mechanism Of Intuition And Analytical Processing

It was argued that thinking is characterized by the action of two distinctive cognitive systems,namely,intuitive processing and analytic processing.However,it was still under debate how to distinguish between the two processes.It was suggested in the recent results that the cognitive resources actually consumed during task solving may be the key to differentiating the two processes.Therefore,selecting the embedded Chinese character task as materials(that is,the subjects were required to judge whether the target character was included in the test characters,for example,the intuitive condition,the target character'?' and test character'?',the analytical condition,the target character' ? ' and test character' ? '),the present study manipulated the cognitive resources actually consumed during the task solving through both objective and subjective approaches with the help of behavior and ERP technology,and explored the neural mechanism of intuitive processing and analytical processing under the perspective of cognitive resources.The present research has three parts.In experiment 1,the embedded Chinese character task,which was divided into intuitive materials and analyticals materials by the amount of cognitive resources required during task solving,was prepared with behavior technology for subsequent experiment.In experiment 2,cognitive resources actually consumed in the task were manipulated by objective factors with the help of ERP technology.Experiment 2 is divided into 2 a and 2 b.Experiment 2a manipulated the actual consumption of cognitive resources required by the task itself(intuitive materials and analytical materials).The results showed that there were significant differences between inclusion and exclusion conditions in N2 and P3 b components only in intuitive materials.This indicated that the speed of intuitive processing is faster than analytical processing when the cognitive resources were sufficient.Under subliminal environment,experiment 2b explored the change of actual consumption of cognitive resources and the selection of intuition and analytical processing mode when solving the same questions as experiment 2a with the cognitive resources in the environment were not sufficient.The results showed that there were significant differences between inclusion and exclusion conditions in N2 and P3 b components both in intuitive and analytical materials.This indicates that in the subliminal condition,the subjects were forced to solve the analytical problem in the intuitive mode.With the help of ERP technology,experiment 3 manipulated the actual consumption of cognitive resources during task solving with the adding of subjective factors(male and female)based on experiment 2b,and revealed the neural mechanism of intuitive processing and analytical processing of different genders in solving the embedded Chinese character task.The results showed that there were significant differences between inclusion and exclusion conditions in N2 and P3 b components both in intuitive and analytical materials for female subjects,while there was no significant differences under both conditions.This indicates that under the subliminal condition,the analysis process of female showed the characteristics of intuitive processing,while male can only rely on guesswork to solve problems.The results show that :(1)the amount of cognitive resources required by solving the task can be effectively manipulated by the embedded Chinese character task,which is suitable for dual-process field;(2)when the cognitive resources provided by the environment are sufficient,individuals choose the processing mode according to the cognitive resources required by the task;When the cognitive resources provided by the environment are insufficient,the cognitive resources that individuals can use to solve problems are reduced,so only the intuitive processing method can be chosen to solve problems;(3)when the cognitive resources that individuals can use subjectively for a certain task are sufficient(such as proficiency),the demand for cognitive resources of solving the task can be reduced,thus helping the completion of the task;When the cognitive resources that the individual can use subjectively for a task,as well as the environment,are relatively scarce(such as the novice),the problem may only be solved by guessing.