Center for Brain Health, University of Texas at Dallas, 2200 West Mockingbird Lane, Dallas, TX 75235, USA.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2012 Mar;38(2):273-81. doi: 10.1037/a0025485. Epub 2011 Nov 21.
Analogical reasoning consists of multiple phases. Four-term analogies (A:B::C:D) have an encoding period in which the A:B pair is evaluated prior to a mapping phase. The electrophysiological timing associated with analogical reasoning has remained unclear. We used event-related potentials to identify neural timing related to analogical reasoning relative to perceptual and semantic control conditions. Spatiotemporal principal-components analyses revealed differences primarily in left frontal electrodes during encoding and mapping phases of analogies relative to the other conditions. The timing of the activity differed depending upon the phase of the problem. During the encoding of A:B terms, analogies elicited a positive deflection compared to the control conditions between 400 and 1,200 ms, but for the mapping phase analogical processing elicited a negative deflection that occurred earlier and for a shorter time period, between 350 and 625 ms. These results provide neural and behavioral evidence that 4-term analogy problems involve a highly active evaluation phase of the A:B pair.
类比推理由多个阶段组成。四术语类比（A:B::C:D）有一个编码阶段，在此阶段，A:B 对在映射阶段之前进行评估。与类比推理相关的电生理时间一直不清楚。我们使用事件相关电位来确定与类比推理相关的神经时间，相对于感知和语义控制条件。时空主成分分析表明，在类比推理的编码和映射阶段，与其他条件相比，主要在左额电极上存在差异。活动的时间取决于问题的阶段。在 A:B 项的编码过程中，与控制条件相比，类比在 400 到 1200 毫秒之间引起正偏转，但对于映射阶段，类比处理引起负偏转，发生得更早，时间更短，在 350 到 625 毫秒之间。这些结果提供了神经和行为证据，表明四术语类比问题涉及 A:B 对的高度活跃评估阶段。
