Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of MOE, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
Center for Teaching and Learning Development, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China.
PLoS One. 2020 Mar 4;15(3):e0229515. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229515. eCollection 2020.
Category-based induction involves the generalization of a novel property (conclusion property) to a new category (conclusion category), based on the knowledge that a category exemplar (premise category) has the respective novel property. Previous studies have shown that conclusion specificity (i.e., specific [S] or generic categories [G]) influences category-based induction. However, the timing of brain activity underlying this effect is not well known, especially with controlling the similarities of premise and conclusion categories between S and G arguments. In this study, the event-related potential (ERP) responses to category-based induction between S and G arguments were compared under both congruent (+, premise and conclusion categories are related) and incongruent (-, premise and conclusion categories are unrelated) arguments; additionally, the similarities of premise and conclusion categories between S and G arguments were controlled. The results showed that replicating this effect, S+ arguments have increased "strong" response rates compared to G+ arguments, suggesting that category-based induction is contingent on factors beyond matched similarities. Moreover, S arguments have more liberal inductive decision thresholds than G arguments, which suggest that conclusion specificity affects the inductive decision reflected by inductive decision thresholds. Furthermore, G+ arguments elicit greater P3a amplitudes than S+ arguments, which suggest greater attention resources allocation to the review of decisions for G+ arguments than that for S+ arguments. Taken together, the conclusion specificity effect during semantic category-based induction can be revealed by "strong" response rates, inductive decision thresholds, and P3a component after controlling the premise-conclusion similarity, providing evidence that category-based induction rely on more than simple similarity judgment and conclusion specificity would affect category-based induction.
基于类别归纳涉及基于对范例类别的知识，将新的属性（结论属性）推广到新的类别（结论类别）。先前的研究表明，结论的特异性（即特定[S]或通用[G]类别）会影响基于类别的归纳。然而，这种效应的大脑活动的时间进程尚不清楚，尤其是在控制 S 和 G 论据的前提和结论类别之间的相似性的情况下。在这项研究中，在前提和结论类别相关（+）和不相关（-）的情况下，比较了 S 和 G 论据之间基于类别的归纳的事件相关电位（ERP）反应；此外，还控制了 S 和 G 论据的前提和结论类别之间的相似性。结果表明，在复制这种效应的情况下，S+论据的“强”反应率高于 G+论据，这表明基于类别的归纳取决于超出匹配相似性的因素。此外，S 论据的归纳决策阈值比 G 论据更宽松，这表明结论特异性会影响由归纳决策阈值反映的归纳决策。此外，G+论据引起的 P3a 幅度大于 S+论据，这表明对 G+论据的决策审查需要比 S+论据更多的注意力资源分配。总之，在控制前提-结论相似性的情况下，可以通过“强”反应率、归纳决策阈值和 P3a 成分揭示语义类别归纳过程中的结论特异性效应，这表明基于类别的归纳不仅仅依赖于简单的相似性判断，并且结论特异性会影响基于类别的归纳。
