Ragni Marco, Franzmeier Imke, Maier Simon, Knauff Markus
University of Giessen, Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science, Germany; University of Freiburg, Technical Faculty, Germany.
University of Freiburg, Dept. of Cognitive Science, Germany.
Brain Cogn. 2016 Apr;104:72-81. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2016.02.006. Epub 2016 Mar 10.
The psychology of reasoning is currently transitioning from the study of deductive inferences under certainty to inferences that have degrees of uncertainty in both their premises and conclusions; however, only a few studies have explored the cortical basis of uncertain reasoning. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we show that areas in the right superior parietal lobe (rSPL) are necessary for solving spatial relational reasoning problems under conditions of uncertainty. Twenty-four participants had to decide whether a single presented order of objects agreed with a given set of indeterminate premises that could be interpreted in more than one way. During the presentation of the order, 10-Hz TMS was applied over the rSPL or a sham control site. Right SPL TMS during the inference phase disrupted performance in uncertain relational reasoning. Moreover, we found differences in the error rates between preferred mental models, alternative models, and inconsistent models. Our results suggest that different mechanisms are involved when people reason spatially and evaluate different kinds of uncertain conclusions.
推理心理学目前正从对确定性条件下演绎推理的研究转向对前提和结论都具有不确定性程度的推理的研究；然而，只有少数研究探索了不确定推理的皮层基础。通过经颅磁刺激（TMS），我们发现右侧顶上叶（rSPL）区域对于在不确定条件下解决空间关系推理问题是必要的。24名参与者必须判断单个呈现的物体顺序是否与一组给定的不确定前提一致，这些前提可以有多种解释。在呈现顺序期间，在rSPL或假对照部位施加10赫兹的TMS。推理阶段的右侧SPL TMS干扰了不确定关系推理的表现。此外，我们发现了首选心理模型、替代模型和不一致模型之间错误率的差异。我们的结果表明，当人们进行空间推理并评估不同类型的不确定结论时，涉及不同的机制。
