Papageorgiou Charalabos, Stachtea Xanthi, Papageorgiou Panos, Alexandridis Antonio T, Tsaltas Eleftheria, Angelopoulos Elias
1st Department of Psychiatry, Eginition Hospital, Athens, Greece.
University Mental Health Research Institute (UMHRI), Athens, Greece.
PLoS One. 2016 Dec 29;11(12):e0168067. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0168067. eCollection 2016.
This study, a tribute to Aristotle's 2400 years, used a juxtaposition of valid Aristotelian arguments to the paradoxes formulated by Zeno the Eleatic, in order to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of attentional and /or memory processing effects in the course of deductive reasoning. Participants undertook reasoning tasks based on visually presented arguments which were either (a) valid (Aristotelian) statements or (b) paradoxes. We compared brain activation patterns while participants maintained the premises / conclusions of either the valid statements or the paradoxes in working memory (WM). Event-related brain potentials (ERPs), specifically the P300 component of ERPs, were recorded during the WM phase, during which participants were required to draw a logical conclusion regarding the correctness of the valid syllogisms or the paradoxes. During the processing of paradoxes, results demonstrated a more positive event-related potential deflection (P300) across frontal regions, whereas processing of valid statements was associated with noticeable P300 amplitudes across parieto-occipital regions. These findings suggest that paradoxes mobilize frontal attention mechanisms, while valid deduction promotes parieto-occipital activity associated with attention and/or subsequent memory processing.
这项向亚里士多德诞辰2400周年致敬的研究，将有效的亚里士多德式论证与埃利亚的芝诺提出的悖论并列起来，以研究演绎推理过程中注意力和/或记忆处理效应的电生理相关性。参与者基于视觉呈现的论证进行推理任务，这些论证要么是（a）有效的（亚里士多德式）陈述，要么是（b）悖论。我们比较了参与者在工作记忆（WM）中保持有效陈述或悖论的前提/结论时的大脑激活模式。在WM阶段记录事件相关脑电位（ERP），特别是ERP的P300成分，在此阶段要求参与者对有效三段论或悖论的正确性得出逻辑结论。在处理悖论的过程中，结果显示额叶区域有更正向的事件相关电位偏转（P300），而处理有效陈述则与顶枕区域明显的P300波幅相关。这些发现表明，悖论调动额叶注意力机制，而有效推理则促进与注意力和/或后续记忆处理相关的顶枕活动。
