Bonnefond Mathilde, Kaliuzhna Mariia, Van der Henst Jean-Baptiste, De Neys Wim
Donders Institute, Radboud University, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Laboratoire sur le Langage, le Cerveau et la Cognition (L2C2), CNRS, Institut des Sciences Cognitives, Université de Lyon 1, France.
Ecole Polytechique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland.
Neuropsychologia. 2014 Apr;56:255-62. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.01.022. Epub 2014 Feb 5.
Although the Modus Ponens inference is one of the most basic logical rules, decades of conditional reasoning research show that it is often rejected when people consider stored background knowledge about potential disabling conditions. In the present study we used EEG to identify neural markers of this process. We presented participants with many and few disabler conditionals for which retrieval of disabling conditions was likely or unlikely. As in classic behavioral studies we observed that participants accepted the standard MP conclusion less for conditionals with many disablers. The key finding was that the presentation of the standard MP conclusion also resulted in a more pronounced N2 and less pronounced P3b for the many disabler conditionals. This specific N2/P3b pattern has been linked to the violation and satisfaction of expectations, respectively. Thereby, the present ERP findings support the idea that disabler retrieval lowers reasoners' expectations that the standard MP conclusion can be drawn.
尽管肯定前件式推理是最基本的逻辑规则之一，但数十年的条件推理研究表明，当人们考虑关于潜在失效条件的存储背景知识时，该规则常常被拒绝。在本研究中，我们使用脑电图来识别这一过程的神经标记。我们向参与者呈现了有许多和较少失效条件的条件句，对于这些条件句，检索失效条件的可能性或大或小。与经典行为研究一样，我们观察到，对于有许多失效条件的条件句，参与者接受标准肯定前件式结论的比例较低。关键发现是，对于有许多失效条件的条件句，呈现标准肯定前件式结论还会导致更明显的N2和不太明显的P3b。这种特定的N2/P3b模式分别与期望的违背和满足有关。因此，目前的事件相关电位研究结果支持了这样一种观点，即检索失效条件会降低推理者得出标准肯定前件式结论的期望。
