Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
Collaborative Innovation Center for Language Ability, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Language and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Linguistic Sciences and Arts, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, 221116, China.
Neurosci Bull. 2022 Dec;38(12):1476-1490. doi: 10.1007/s12264-022-00941-7. Epub 2022 Aug 19.
Analogical reasoning improvement is important in educational outcome improvement. Inspired by recent ideas and evidence, we applied anti-saccade task training as an executive attention intervention and tested whether it could improve analogical reasoning performance. A serial-task paradigm was applied where participants performed an anti-saccade followed by an analogical reasoning task including a perception condition. The experimental group finished the anti-saccade task in which the ratio of anti-saccade trials to pro-saccade trials was 5:1 while the counterpart was 1:1 in the active control group. Also, a blank control group was established where participants merely finished the analogical reasoning task. Event-related electroencephalographic (EEG) data were recorded when participants were performing the executive attention and analogical reasoning tasks. In addition, their resting state EEG was collected before and after the executive attention intervention. Behaviorally, the experimental group reacted significantly faster than the other two groups in analogical reasoning but not in perception. At the neural level, in the experimental group alone, the anti-saccade trials elicited a smaller N2 than pro-saccade trials and the resting alpha power was improved after executive attention intervention. No significant difference in P2 was found between the two groups in analogical reasoning or perception but the experimental group showed a larger late positive component than the active control group in analogical reasoning. We also found that the late positive component mediated the relationship between the N2 of anti-saccade trials and analogical reasoning reaction times in the experimental group. We further discussed the role of executive attention in the analogical reasoning process, which may pave the way for the future reliable improvement of fluid intelligence.
类比推理能力的提高对于教育成果的提升非常重要。受近期研究的启发，我们应用了反扫视任务训练作为执行注意干预措施，并测试了它是否能够提高类比推理能力。我们采用了一种连续任务范式，参与者先完成反扫视任务，然后再完成包括感知条件的类比推理任务。实验组完成的反扫视任务中，反扫视试验与正扫视试验的比例为 5:1，而对照组为 1:1。此外，我们还建立了一个空白对照组，其中参与者只需完成类比推理任务。当参与者执行执行注意和类比推理任务时，记录了事件相关的脑电图 (EEG) 数据。此外，在执行注意干预前后，还采集了他们的静息态 EEG。行为上，实验组在类比推理中的反应速度明显快于其他两组，但在感知中没有。在神经水平上，仅在实验组中，反扫视试验诱发的 N2 比正扫视试验小，执行注意干预后静息态α功率提高。在类比推理或感知中，两组之间的 P2 没有显著差异，但实验组在类比推理中的晚期正成分比对照组大。我们还发现，实验组晚期正成分在反扫视试验 N2 和类比推理反应时间之间的关系中起中介作用。我们进一步讨论了执行注意在类比推理过程中的作用，这可能为未来可靠地提高流体智力铺平道路。
