The role of working memory in analogical mapping

Neural Correlates of Analogical Reasoning on Syntactic Patterns

Analogical reasoning is central to thought and learning. However, previous neuroscience studies have focused mainly on neural substrates for visuospatial and semantic analogies. There has not yet been research on the neural correlates of analogical reasoning on syntactic patterns generated by the syntactic rules, a key feature of human language faculty. The present investigation took an initial step to address this paucity. Twenty-four participants, whose brain activity was monitored by fMRI, engaged in first-order and second-order relational judgments of syntactic patterns as well as simple and complex working memory tasks. After scanning, participants rated the difficulty of each step during analogical reasoning; these ratings were related to signal intensities in activated regions of interest using Spearman correlation analyses. After prior research, differences in activation levels during second-order and first-order relational judgments were taken as evidence of analogical reasoning. These analyses showed that analogical reasoning on syntactic patterns recruited brain regions consistent with those supporting visuospatial and semantic analogies, including the anterior and posterior parts of the left middle frontal gyrus, anatomically corresponding to the left rostrolateral pFC and the left dorsolateral pFC. The correlation results further revealed that the posterior middle frontal gyrus might be involved in analogical access and mapping with syntactic patterns. Our study is the first to investigate the process of analogical reasoning on syntactic patterns at the neurobiological level and provide evidence of the specific functional roles of related regions during subprocesses of analogical reasoning.

Semantic and Visuospatial Fluid Reasoning in School-Aged Autistic Children

In light of the known visuoperceptual strengths and altered language skills in autism, we investigated the impact of problem content (semantic/visuospatial) combined with complexity and presence of lures on fluid reasoning in 43 autistic and 41 typical children (6-13 years old). Increased complexity and presence of lures diminished performance, but less so as the children's age increased. Typical children were slightly more accurate overall, whereas autistic children were faster at solving complex visuospatial problems. Thus, reasoning could rely more extensively on visuospatial strategies in autistic versus typical children. A combined speed-accuracy measure revealed similar performance in both groups, suggesting a similar pace in fluid reasoning development. Visual presentation of conceptual information seems to suit the reasoning processes of autistic children.

Various sources of distraction during analogical reasoning

Reasoning by analogy requires mapping relational correspondence between two situations to transfer information from the more familiar (source) to the less familiar situation (target). However, the presence of distractors may lead to invalid conclusions based on semantic or perceptual similarities instead of on relational correspondence. To understand the role of distraction in analogy making, we examined semantically rich four-term analogies (A:B::C:?) and scene analogies, as well as semantically lean geometric analogies and the matrix task tapping general reasoning. We examined (a) what types of lures were most distracting, (b) how the two semantically rich analogy tasks were related, and (c) how much variance in the scores could be attributed to general reasoning ability. We observed that (a) in four-term analogies the distractors semantically related to C impacted performance most strongly, as compared to the perceptual, categorical, and relational distractors, but the two latter distractor types also mattered; (b) distraction sources in four-term and scene analogies were virtually unrelated; and (c) general reasoning explained the largest part of variance in resistance to distraction. The results suggest that various sources of distraction operate at different stages of analogical reasoning and differently affect specific analogy paradigms.

Verbal interference paradigms: A systematic review investigating the role of language in cognition

This paper presents a systematic review of the empirical literature that uses dual-task interference methods for investigating the on-line involvement of language in various cognitive tasks. In these studies, participants perform some primary task X putatively recruiting linguistic resources while also engaging in a secondary, concurrent task. If performance on the primary task decreases under interference, there is evidence for language involvement in the primary task. We assessed studies (N = 101) reporting at least one experiment with verbal interference and at least one control task (either primary or secondary). We excluded papers with an explicitly clinical, neurological, or developmental focus. The primary tasks identified include categorization, memory, mental arithmetic, motor control, reasoning (verbal and visuospatial), task switching, theory of mind, visual change, and visuospatial integration and wayfinding. Overall, the present review found that covert language is likely to play a facilitative role in memory and categorization when items to be remembered or categorized have readily available labels, when inner speech can act as a form of behavioral self-cuing (inhibitory control, task set reminders, verbal strategy), and when inner speech is plausibly useful as "workspace," for example, for mental arithmetic. There is less evidence for the role of covert language in cross-modal integration, reasoning relying on a high degree of visual detail or items low on nameability, and theory of mind. We discuss potential pitfalls and suggestions for streamlining and improving the methodology.

The Neural Correlates of Analogy Component Processes

Analogical reasoning is a core facet of higher cognition in humans. Creating analogies as we navigate the environment helps us learn. Analogies involve reframing novel encounters using knowledge of familiar, relationally similar contexts stored in memory. When an analogy links a novel encounter with a familiar context, it can aid in problem solving. Reasoning by analogy is a complex process that is mediated by multiple brain regions and mechanisms. Several advanced computational architectures have been developed to simulate how these brain processes give rise to analogical reasoning, like the "learning with inferences and schema abstraction" architecture and the Companion architecture. To obtain this power to simulate human reasoning, theses architectures assume that various computational "subprocesses" comprise analogical reasoning, such as analogical access, mapping, inference, and schema induction, consistent with the structure-mapping framework proposed decades ago. However, little is known about how these subprocesses relate to actual brain processes. While some work in neuroscience has linked analogical reasoning to regions of brain prefrontal cortex, more research is needed to investigate the wide array of specific neural hypotheses generated by the computational architectures. In the current article, we review the association between historically important computational architectures of analogy and empirical studies in neuroscience. In particular, we focus on evidence for a frontoparietal brain network underlying analogical reasoning and the degree to which brain mechanisms mirror the computational subprocesses. We also offer a general vantage on the current- and future-states of neuroscience research in this domain and provide some recommendations for future neuroimaging studies.

Linking metaphor comprehension with analogical reasoning: Evidence from typical development and autism spectrum disorder

We examined the relationship between metaphor comprehension and verbal analogical reasoning in young adults who were either typically developing (TD) or diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The ASD sample was highly educated and high in verbal ability, and closely matched to a subset of TD participants on age, gender, educational background, and verbal ability. Additional TD participants with a broader range of abilities were also tested. Each participant solved sets of verbal analogies and metaphors in verification formats, allowing measurement of both accuracy and reaction times. Measures of individual differences in vocabulary, verbal working memory, and autistic traits were also obtained. Accuracy for both the verbal analogy and the metaphor task was very similar across the ASD and matched TD groups. However, reaction times on both tasks were longer for the ASD group. Additionally, stronger correlations between verbal analogical reasoning and working memory capacity in the ASD group indicated that processing verbal analogies was more effortful for them. In the case of both groups, accuracy on the metaphor and analogy tasks was correlated. A mediation analysis revealed that after controlling for working memory capacity, the inter-task correlation could be accounted for by the mediating variable of vocabulary knowledge, suggesting that the primary common mechanisms linking the two tasks involve language skills.

Forgetting of competing solutions as a consequence of analogical problem-solving attempts

ABSTRACTThree experiments used a paradigm based on Retrieval-Induced Forgetting research to test for the competition from non-useful sources of information in cross-domain analogical transfer. This was accomplished by presenting people with texts introducing multiple candidate solutions prior to attempting the Radiation problem, and later testing memory for the texts. In Experiment 1, viable and unviable candidate solutions that varied in surface and structural similarity were presented in their own story contexts. In Experiments 2 and 3, the viable and unviable solutions were embedded within the same story context. The results suggest that forgetting unviable solutions that share surface-level overlap with the target problem may be less important than suggested by prior work. Instead, greater evidence of forgetting was obtained when unviable solutions were embedded within the same context as viable solutions. These findings suggest that competition from superficially similar, unviable solutions may not be the main obstacle during analogical problem-solving attempts, but rather the main obstacle for transfer may be the selection of relevant solution concepts.

Data in Context: How Digital Transformation Can Support Human Reasoning in Cyber-Physical Production Systems

In traditional production plants, current technologies do not provide sufficient context to support information integration and interpretation. Digital transformation technologies have the potential to support contextualization, but it is unclear how this can be achieved. The present article presents a selection of the psychological literature in four areas relevant to contextualization: information sampling, information integration, categorization, and causal reasoning. Characteristic biases and limitations of human information processing are discussed. Based on this literature, we derive functional requirements for digital transformation technologies, focusing on the cognitive activities they should support. We then present a selection of technologies that have the potential to foster contextualization. These technologies enable the modelling of system relations, the integration of data from different sources, and the connection of the present situation with historical data. We illustrate how these technologies can support contextual reasoning, and highlight challenges that should be addressed when designing human–machine cooperation in cyber-physical production systems.

Negative emotions influence EEG correlates of inference formation during analogical reasoning

Previous research indicates that negative emotions influence cognitive resource utilization during analogical reasoning. However, no research has yet demonstrated an influence of negative emotions on inference formation during analogical reasoning. For this reason, we used evoked response potentials to investigate how negatively valenced content affects inference formation during analogical reasoning. Participants generated inferences about the missing term of 256 four-term analogies consisting of a first pair (A is to B), a second incomplete pair (as C is to?), and a probe term (D). We manipulated the affective valence of the terms (negative/neutral) forming the first two pairs and the soundness of the analogies. In Experiment 1, the terms were words and the relations were semantic in nature. We recorded the N400 event-related component time-locked to the probe term. The effect of analogy soundness on N400 amplitude was weaker when both pairs of terms were negative than when one or both pairs were neutral. In Experiment 2, we used analogies with negatively or neutrally conditioned symbols as terms, and visuospatial transformations as relations. We recorded the P3b event-related component time-locked to the final term of the analogy. The effect of analogy soundness on P3b amplitude was weaker when the first pair of terms was negatively conditioned than when they were neutrally conditioned. Results of both experiments suggested that negatively valenced content impairs the formation of inferences during analogical reasoning, as indicated by reduced effects of analogy soundness on N400 and P3b in the presence of negatively valenced content.

A Dissociative Framework for Understanding Same-Different Conceptualization

Cognitive, comparative, and developmental psychologists have long been interested in humans' and animals' ability to respond to abstract relations. Cross-species research has used relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks in which participants try to find stimulus pairs that "match" because they express the same abstract relation (same or different). Researchers seek to understand the cognitive processes that underlie successful matching, and the cognitive constraints that create species differences in these tasks. Here we describe a dissociative framework drawn from cognitive neuroscience. It has strong potential to illuminate the area of same-different conceptualization. It has already influenced comparative research on categorization and metacognition. This dissociative framework also shows that species differences in same-different conceptualization have resonance with species differences in other comparative domains.

The effect of object similarity and alignment of examples on children's learning and transfer from picture books

Story picture books with examples can be used to teach young children science concepts. Learners can abstract relational information by comparing the analogical examples in the books, leading to a more abstract transferrable understanding of the concept. The purpose of this study was to determine whether manipulating the content or arrangement of the examples included in a picture book would support children's generalization and transfer of a relational concept, namely color camouflage. In total, 81 3-year-olds and 80 4-year-olds were read one of four books at two visits spaced approximately 1 week apart. Examples were manipulated in a 2 (Object Similarity: high or low) × 2 (Arrangement: interleaved or blocked) design. At each visit, children were asked forced-choice questions with photographs (generalization) and real animals (transfer) and needed to explain their choices. At the first visit, only 3-year-olds who had been read a book with high object similarity displayed generalization and transfer. After they were read the same book again at the second visit, 3-year-olds in all conditions performed above chance on generalization questions but made more correct selections if they had been read the books with blocked examples. The 4-year-olds showed no book-related differences on forced-choice questions at either visit but gave better explanations at the second visit if they had been read interleaved books. Our study provides evidence that picture books with analogical examples can be used to teach children about science but that different types and arrangements of examples may better support children at different ages and with different amounts of prior experience.

Teaching and Learning Science through Multiple Representations: Intuitions and Executive Functions

Reasoning about visual representations in science requires the ability to control one's attention, inhibit attention to irrelevant or incorrect information, and hold information in mind while manipulating it actively-all aspects of the limited-capacity cognitive system described as humans' executive functions. This article describes pedagogical intuitions on best practices for how to sequence visual representations among pre-service teachers, adult undergraduates, and middle school children, with learning also tested in the middle school sample. Interestingly, at all ages, most people reported beliefs about teaching others that were different from beliefs about how they would learn. Teaching beliefs were most often that others would learn better from presenting representations one at a time, serially; while learning beliefs were that they themselves would learn best from simultaneous presentations. Students did learn best from simultaneously presented representations of mitosis and meiosis, but only when paired with self-explanation prompts to discuss the relationships between the graphics. These results provide new recommendations for helping students draw connections across visual representations, particularly mitosis and meiosis, and suggest that science educators would benefit from shifting their teaching beliefs to align with beliefs about their own learning from multiple visual representations.

Bias and sensitivity to task constraints in spontaneous relational attention

Two experiments examined factors that predicted children's tendencies to match objects versus relations across scenes when no instruction was given. Specifically, we assessed the presence of higher relational responding in children by (a) age, (b) greater presumed experience in generating relations through socialization in China versus the United States, and (c) in children with greater manipulated experience via a relational priming task. Experiment 1 showed that Chinese and U.S. children across all ages showed an initial bias to match objects versus relations across scenes. However, older children in both regions were more likely to notice features of the task that indicated attending to relational matches was a more reliable solution, and shifted their responding toward relations over the course of the task. Experiment 2 replicated the object-mapping bias and age effects within U.S. children while also examining the impact of directly manipulating children's relational experiences to test the malleability of the bias. Before the main scene-mapping task, children did a relation generation task known to prime attention to relations. This did not override the initial bias toward object mapping, but it magnified the role of age, making older children increasingly sensitive to task features that prompted relational matches, further shifting their responding toward relations over the course of the task.

Individual differences in relational reasoning

Various forms of relational processing have been linked to cognitive capacity measures, such as working memory and fluid intelligence. However, previous work has not established the extent to which different forms of relational processing reflect common factors, nor whether individual differences in cognitive style also contribute to variations in relational reasoning. The current study took an individual-differences approach to investigate the prerequisites for relational processing. In two studies, college students completed a battery of standardized tests of individual differences related to fluid intelligence and cognitive style, as well as a series of experimental tasks that require relational reasoning. Moderate correlations were obtained between relational processing and measures of cognitive capacity. Questionnaire measures of cognitive style generally did not improve predictions of relational processing beyond the influence of measures of cognitive capacity.

Relational Integration in the Human Brain: A Review and Synthesis

Relational integration is required when multiple explicit representations of relations between entities must be jointly considered to make inferences. We provide an overview of the neural substrate of relational integration in humans and the processes that support it, focusing on work on analogical and deductive reasoning. In addition to neural evidence, we consider behavioral and computational work that has informed neural investigations of the representations of individual relations and of relational integration. In very general terms, evidence from neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and neuromodulatory studies points to a small set of regions (generally left lateralized) that appear to constitute key substrates for component processes of relational integration. These include posterior parietal cortex, implicated in the representation of first-order relations (e.g., A:B); rostrolateral pFC, apparently central in integrating first-order relations so as to generate and/or evaluate higher-order relations (e.g., A:B::C:D); dorsolateral pFC, involved in maintaining relations in working memory; and ventrolateral pFC, implicated in interference control (e.g., inhibiting salient information that competes with relevant relations). Recent work has begun to link computational models of relational representation and reasoning with patterns of neural activity within these brain areas.

Can a relational mindset boost analogical retrieval?

BACKGROUND

Memory retrieval is driven by similarity between a present situation and some prior experience, but not all similarity is created equal. Analogical retrieval, rooted in the similarity between two situations in their underlying structural relations, is often responsible for new insights and innovative solutions to problems. However, superficial similarity is instead more likely to drive spontaneous retrieval. How can we make analogical retrieval more likely? Inducing a relational mindset via an analogical reasoning task has previously been shown to boost subsequent relational thinking. In this paper, we examined whether inducing a relational mindset could also boost analogical retrieval.

RESULTS

We find that a relational mindset can increase analogical retrieval if induced before information is encoded in the first place, amplifying the effect of a clearly labelled relational structure. On the other hand, inducing a relational mindset at the time of retrieval did not increase analogical retrieval.

CONCLUSION

This work further demonstrates the central importance of high-quality relational encoding for subsequent relation-based analogical retrieval, and that inducing a relational mindset can improve those encodings.

How language and inhibition influence analogical reasoning in children with or without developmental language disorder?

Introduction: Analogical reasoning is a human ability of crucial importance in several domains of cognition, such as numerical abilities, social cognition, and language, and which is impaired in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). This impairment might be caused by their weaknesses in inhibition or by the inefficient use of phonological recoding.Method: We compared children with DLD and age-matched children without language disorders in an A:B::C:D analogical task. We manipulated two variables: interference (versus no interference) was used to evaluate the impact of articulatory suppression on analogical performance, and distraction (versus no distractor) was used to test whether perceptual distractors (which compete with relational responses) diminish children's performance.Results: Contrary to expectations, articulatory suppression does not have a negative effect on analogical reasoning. In contrast, perceptual distractors have a detrimental impact on performance, and children with DLD are more impacted by perceptual distraction than their peers. Moreover, inhibition, as measured by a classical inhibition task, influences performance, but only for children with DLD.Conclusion: The analogical reasoning impairment observed in DLD, therefore, seems to be related to perceptual distraction and inhibition rather than to phonological recoding. To conclude, this study investigates the analogical reasoning impairment observed in DLD and contributes to our understanding of the relationships between language, analogical reasoning, and executive functions.

Simple verbal analogical reasoning and its predictors in old age

Analogical reasoning - the ability to find a relation between two objects is often recognized as a core of cognition. This article presents two studies focused on the effect of aging on analogical reasoning, and potential mechanisms that explain individual differences between the performances of elderly adults in analogy tasks. In Study 1, the authors examined age-related differences in reasoning based on simple verbal analogical relations, A:B:: C:D type. Elderly participants (N = 25, M_age = 73.12) obtained significantly lower results than younger adults (N = 25, M_age = 21.12). In Study 2, authors concentrated on individual differences between elderly people (N = 95, M_age = 71.39) in the same type of analogical reasoning. Regression analysis confirmed the role of processing speed and age, but not of inhibitory control, working memory and education, as predictors of analogical reasoning in old age. Results of both studies are discussed in relation to the conclusions drawn from current research in the field of analogical reasoning.

Breaking the perceptual-conceptual barrier: Relational matching and working memory

Cognitive, comparative, and developmental psychologists have long been interested in humans' and animals' ability to respond to abstract relations, as this ability may underlie important capacities like analogical reasoning. Cross-species research has used relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks in which participants try to find stimulus pairs that "match" because they both express the same abstract relation (same or different). Researchers seek to understand the cognitive processes that underlie successful matching performance. In the present RMTS paradigm, the abstract-relational cue was made redundant with a first-order perceptual cue. Then the perceptual cue faded, requiring participants to transition from a perceptual to a conceptual approach by realizing the task's abstract-relational affordance. We studied participants' ability to make this transition with and without a working-memory load. The concurrent load caused participants to fail to break the perceptual-conceptual barrier unless the load was abandoned. We conclude that finding the conceptual solution depends on reconstruing the task using cognitive processes that are especially reliant on working memory. Our data provide the closest existing look at this cognitive reorganization. They raise important theoretical issues for cross-species comparisons of relational cognition, especially regarding animals' limitations in this domain.

Impact of processing load on analogical mapping with visual sequences in children with developmental language disorders (DLD)

BACKGROUND

Analogical mapping is a domain-general cognitive process used notably in language development, and particularly in the abstraction of construction schemas. Children with developmental language disorders (DLD) display an impairment in linguistic productivity and creativity, which can be linked to a lack of generalization of construction schemas.

AIMS

To investigate analogical mapping in children with DLD, and especially the influence of processing load, as it could explain the lack of creativity observed in children with DLD. It was hypothesized that analogical mapping is altered in children with DLD and that greater cognitive load (sequential presentation and no perceptual support) would be linked to poorer performance in these children.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

Fifteen children with DLD and their age-matched peers were administrated a visual analogical reasoning task where they had to complete a sequence sharing the same relational structure as previously presented sequences. Two factors influencing processing load were studied: the modality of presentation (sequential versus simultaneous) and the perceptual support (with versus without).

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Results showed an expected group effect with poorer performance in children with DLD compared with children with typical language development (TLD). Results corroborated hypotheses according to which children with DLD have difficulties with analogical mapping, which could hinder their abstraction of construction schemas. Results about the influence of processing load were mixed. While the difference between the two groups was more marked for the items without perceptual support than for those with perceptual support, children with DLD were not more affected by the sequential presentation than children with TLD.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

Children with DLD have impaired analogical mapping competences, especially when the relational similarities are not supported by perceptual cues. This impairment may be the cause of their difficulties in abstracting construction schemas, thus provoking their poor linguistic productivity and creativity. However, more studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis, as the influence of analogical reasoning on language development could also be reversed or could be linked to another external factor.

Analogical Reasoning in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence From an Eye-Tracking Approach

The present study examined analogical reasoning in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its relationship with cognitive and executive functioning and processing strategies. Our findings showed that although children with ASD were less competent in solving analogical problems than typically developing children, this inferior performance was attributable to general cognitive impairments. Eye-movement analyses revealed that children with ASD paid less attention to relational items and showed fewer gaze shifts between relational locations. Nevertheless, these eye-movement patterns did not predict autistic children’s behavioral performance. Together, our findings suggest that ASD per se does not entail impairments in analogical reasoning. The inferior performance of autistic children on analogical reasoning tasks is attributable to deficits in general cognitive and executive functioning.

Executive Function in Learning Mathematics by Comparison: Incorporating Everyday Classrooms into the Science of Learning

Individual differences in Executive Function (EF) are well established to be related to overall mathematics achievement, yet the mechanisms by which this occurs are not well understood. Comparing representations (problems, solutions, concepts) is central to mathematical thinking, and relational reasoning is known to rely upon EF resources. The current manuscript explored whether individual differences in EF predicted learning from a conceptually demanding mathematics lesson that required relational reasoning. Analyses revealed that variations in EF predicted learning when measured at a delay, controlling for pretest scores. Thus, EF capacity may impact students' overall mathematics achievement by constraining their resources available to learn from cognitively demanding reasoning opportunities in everyday lessons. To assess the ecological validity of this interpretation, we report follow-up interviews with mathematics teachers who raised similar concerns that cognitively demanding activities such as comparing multiple representations in mathematics may differentially benefit their high versus struggling learners. Broader implications for ensuring that all students have access to, and benefit from, conceptually rich mathematics lessons are discussed. We also highlight the utility of integrating methods in Science of Learning (SL) research.

Verbal Working Memory Is Related to the Acquisition of Cross-Linguistic Phonological Regularities

Closely related languages share cross-linguistic phonological regularities, such as Frisian -âld [ͻ:t] and Dutch -oud [ʱut], as in the cognate pairs kâld [kͻ:t] – koud [kʱut] ‘cold’ and wâld [wͻ:t] – woud [wʱut] ‘forest’. Within Bybee’s (1995, 2001, 2008, 2010) network model, these regularities are, just like grammatical rules within a language, generalizations that emerge from schemas of phonologically and semantically related words. Previous research has shown that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of grammar, but not vocabulary. This suggests that verbal working memory supports the acquisition of linguistic regularities. In order to test this hypothesis we investigated whether verbal working memory is also related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. For three consecutive years, 5- to 8-year-old Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (n = 120) were tested annually on verbal working memory and a Frisian receptive vocabulary task that comprised four cognate categories: (1) identical cognates, (2) non-identical cognates that either do or (3) do not exhibit a phonological regularity between Frisian and Dutch, and (4) non-cognates. The results showed that verbal working memory had a significantly stronger effect on cognate category (2) than on the other three cognate categories. This suggests that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. More generally, it confirms the hypothesis that verbal working memory plays a role in the acquisition of linguistic regularities.

Working memory predicts children's analogical reasoning

Analogical reasoning is the cognitive skill of drawing relationships between representations, often between prior knowledge and new representations, that allows for bootstrapping cognitive and language development. Analogical reasoning proficiency develops substantially during childhood, although the mechanisms underlying this development have been debated, with developing cognitive resources as one proposed mechanism. We explored the role of executive function (EF) in supporting children's analogical reasoning development, with the goal of determining whether predicted aspects of EF were related to analogical development at the level of individual differences. We assessed 5- to 11-year-old children's working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility using measures from the National Institutes of Health Toolbox Cognition battery. Individual differences in children's working memory best predicted performance on an analogical mapping task, even when controlling for age, suggesting a fundamental interrelationship between analogical reasoning and working memory development. These findings underscore the need to consider cognitive capacities in comprehensive theories of children's reasoning development.

Children's Failure in Analogical Reasoning Tasks: A Problem of Focus of Attention and Information Integration?

Children's improved performance with age in analogy tasks has been explained by an increase in semantic knowledge of the items and the relations between them or by the development of an increased ability to inhibit irrelevant information. We tested the so-called "unbalanced attentional focus hypothesis" that claims that a failure to choose the "analogical" match can be the result of a difficulty to focus on all the relevant information available. Previous eye-tracking research has suggested, in analogies of the A:B::C:D format, that 5-6 year-olds organize their search around the C item. They focused significantly less than adults on the A:B pair, thereby hindering their discovering the relation(s) between A and B. We hypothesized that inducing them to focus their attention on the A:B pair at the beginning of the trial would affect their performance. In Experiment 1, increasing children's focus on the A:B pair did, indeed, lead to better performance. In contrast, in Experiment 2, focusing their attention on the A:B pair impaired performance when the most salient relation holding between A and B was, in fact, irrelevant for the analogy. By contrast, the obvious-but-irrelevant relation in the A:B pair had no negative effect on performance when no explicit A:B focusing was induced. These results are discussed in terms of the temporal organization of the task and availability of information, and of children's difficulties to disengage from the main goal of the task, when necessary.

Analogical reasoning in children with specific language impairment: Evidence from a scene analogy task

Analogical reasoning is a human ability that maps systems of relations. It develops along with relational knowledge, working memory and executive functions such as inhibition. It also maintains a mutual influence on language development. Some authors have taken a greater interest in the analogical reasoning ability of children with language disorders, specifically those with specific language impairment (SLI). These children apparently have weaker analogical reasoning abilities than their aged-matched peers without language disorders. Following cognitive theories of language acquisition, this deficit could be one of the causes of language disorders in SLI, especially those concerning productivity. To confirm this deficit and its link to language disorders, we use a scene analogy task to evaluate the analogical performance of SLI children and compare them to controls of the same age and linguistic abilities. Results show that children with SLI perform worse than age-matched peers, but similar to language-matched peers. They are more influenced by increased task difficulty. The association between language disorders and analogical reasoning in SLI can be confirmed. The hypothesis of limited processing capacity in SLI is also being considered.

Progression paths in children's problem solving: The influence of dynamic testing, initial variability, and working memory

The current study investigated developmental trajectories of analogical reasoning performance of 104 7- and 8-year-old children. We employed a microgenetic research method and multilevel analysis to examine the influence of several background variables and experimental treatment on the children's developmental trajectories. Our participants were divided into two treatment groups: repeated practice alone and repeated practice with training. Each child received an initial working memory assessment and was subsequently asked to solve figural analogies on each of several sessions. We examined children's analogical problem-solving behavior and their subsequent verbal accounts of their employed solving processes. We also investigated the influence of verbal and visual-spatial working memory capacity and initial variability in strategy use on analogical reasoning development. Results indicated that children in both treatment groups improved but that gains were greater for those who had received training. Training also reduced the influence of children's initial variability in the use of analogical strategies with the degree of improvement in reasoning largely unrelated to working memory capacity. Findings from this study demonstrate the value of a microgenetic research method and the use of multilevel analysis to examine inter- and intra-individual change in problem-solving processes.

Analogy and Higher Order Thinking

Linking ideas, concepts, and disciplinary content is an underused yet effective educational strategy for fostering students’ higher order thinking. A body of psychological research on analogical reasoning can inform the challenge of encouraging higher order thinking in schools. We focus in particular on the teaching of mathematics and highlight alignments between a psychologically based definition of higher order thinking and educational goals as described within U.S. mathematical practice standards. Finally, this analysis implicates policies for supporting students’ higher order thinking including requiring assessments that capture these skills; disseminating assessment data meaningfully to help improve teachers, schools, or curricula; and designing professional development that draws explicit attention to these skills.

Learning of role-governed and thematic categories

Natural categories are often based on intrinsic characteristics, such as shared features, but they can also be based on extrinsic relationships to items outside the categories. Examples of relational categories include items that share a thematic relation or items that share a common role. Five experiments used an artificial category learning paradigm to investigate whether people can learn role-governed and thematic categories without explicit instruction or linguistic support. Participants viewed film clips in which objects were engaged in similar actions and then were asked to group together objects that they believed were in the same category. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that while people spontaneously grouped items using both role-governed and thematic relations, when forced to choose between the two, most preferred role-governed categories. In Experiment 3, category labels increased this preference. Experiment 4 found that people failed to group items based on more abstract role relations when the specific relations differed (e.g., objects that prevented different actions). However, Experiment 5 showed that people could identify them with the aid of comparison. We concluded that people can form role-governed categories even with minimal perceptual and linguistic cues.

Licensing Novel Role-Governed Categories: An ERP Analysis

Markman and Stilwell (2001) argued that many natural categories name roles in relational systems, and so they are role-governed categories. This view predicts instantiating a novel relational structure licenses the creation of novel role-governed categories. This paper supports this claim and helps to specify the mechanisms underlying this licensing. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants read passages of text. Participants instantiated novel relational representations by interpreting novel verbs derived from nouns during reading. Sentences later, comprehension of novel role terms derived from the novel verb was facilitated relative to a control condition where the novel verb was paraphrased using the root noun in its familiar form. This comprehension facilitation was marked by a reduced negativity elicited from the role term in the Novel Verb condition relative to the Paraphrase from 400 to 500 ms post-stimulus-onset. This relative difference in negativity is consistent with both the N400, which is a marker of semantic integration, and the Nref effect, which reflects the working memory load required to resolve reference. Additionally, because this increased negativity persisted until 670 ms post-stimulus-onset, and not that the Paraphrase condition elicited an increased positivity (i.e., the P600), we ruled out that the licensing effect is rooted in morphosyntactic processes.

An illustrated heuristic prototype facilitates scientific inventive problem solving: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Many scientific inventions (SI) throughout history were inspired by heuristic prototypes (HPs). For instance, an event or piece of knowledge similar to displaced water from a tub inspired Archimedes' principle. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this insightful problem solving are not very clear. Thus, the present study explored the neural correlates used to solve SI problems facilitated by HPs. Each HP had two versions: a literal description with an illustration (LDI) and a literal description with no illustration (LDNI). Thirty-two participants were divided randomly into these two groups. Blood oxygenation level-dependent fMRI contrasts between LDI and LDNI groups were measured. Greater activity in the right middle occipital gyrus (RMOG, BA19), right precentral gyrus (RPCG, BA4), and left middle frontal gyrus (LMFG, BA46) were found within the LDI group as compared to the LDNI group. We discuss these results in terms cognitive functions within these regions related to problem solving and memory retrieval.

Varying variation: the effects of within- versus across-feature differences on relational category learning

Learning of feature-based categories is known to interact with feature-variation in a variety of ways, depending on the type of variation (e.g., Markman and Maddox, 2003). However, relational categories are distinct from feature-based categories in that they determine membership based on structural similarities. As a result, the way that they interact with feature variation is unclear. This paper explores both experimental and computational data and argues that, despite its reliance on structural factors, relational category-learning should still be affected by the type of feature variation present during the learning process. It specifically suggests that within-feature and across-feature variation should produce different learning trajectories due to a difference in representational cost. The paper then uses the DORA model (Doumas et al., 2008) to discuss how this account might function in a cognitive system before presenting an experiment aimed at testing this account. The experiment was a relational category-learning task and was run on human participants and then simulated in DORA. Both sets of results indicated that learning a relational category from a training set with a lower amount of variation is easier, but that learning from a training set with increased within-feature variation is significantly less challenging than learning from a set with increased across-feature variation. These results support the claim that, like feature-based category-learning, relational category-learning is sensitive to the type of feature variation in the training set.

Is the link from working memory to analogy causal? No analogy improvements following working memory training gains

Analogical reasoning has been hypothesized to critically depend upon working memory through correlational data [1], but less work has tested this relationship through experimental manipulation [2]. An opportunity for examining the connection between working memory and analogical reasoning has emerged from the growing, although somewhat controversial, body of literature suggests complex working memory training can sometimes lead to working memory improvements that transfer to novel working memory tasks. This study investigated whether working memory improvements, if replicated, would increase analogical reasoning ability. We assessed participants’ performance on verbal and visual analogy tasks after a complex working memory training program incorporating verbal and spatial tasks [3], [4]. Participants’ improvements on the working memory training tasks transferred to other short-term and working memory tasks, supporting the possibility of broad effects of working memory training. However, we found no effects on analogical reasoning. We propose several possible explanations for the lack of an impact of working memory improvements on analogical reasoning.

An investigation of reasoning by analogy in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder

Relational reasoning ability relies upon by both cognitive and social factors. We compared analogical reasoning performance in healthy controls (HC) to performance in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and individuals with schizophrenia (SZ). The experimental task required participants to find correspondences between drawings of scenes. Participants were asked to infer which item within one scene best matched a relational item within the second scene. We varied relational complexity, presence of distraction, and type of objects in the analogies (living or non-living items). We hypothesized that the cognitive differences present in SZ would reduce relational inferences relative to ASD and HC. We also hypothesized that both SZ and ASD would show lower performance on living item problems relative to HC due to lower social function scores. Overall accuracy was higher for HC relative to SZ, consistent with prior research. Across groups, higher relational complexity reduced analogical responding, as did the presence of non-living items. Separate group analyses revealed that the ASD group was less accurate at making relational inferences in problems that involved mainly non-living items and when distractors were present. The SZ group showed differences in problem type similar to the ASD group. Additionally, we found significant correlations between social cognitive ability and analogical reasoning, particularly for the SZ group. These results indicate that differences in cognitive and social abilities impact the ability to infer analogical correspondences along with numbers of relational elements and types of objects present in the problems.

Simple verbal analogies test: normative data on a short task exploring abstract thinking

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

The simple verbal analogies test (SVAT) is a short neuropsychological task requiring few minutes of administration that explores inductive verbal abstract thinking. It already showed a good specificity and sensitivity in discriminating normal controls from probable Alzheimer's disease patients. Verbal working memory, semantic knowledge and memory and word-finding ability are also involved in performing analogies. The aim of this study is to provide the normative values of this test in a sample of normal controls and corrections of raw scores and equivalent scores.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We determined the normative values of SVAT in a sample of 424 normal controls to provide corrections of raw scores and equivalent scores.

CONCLUSIONS

SVAT is a useful test to assess executive functions, working memory and to discriminate between cognitive deterioration and normal aging.

The Role of Working Memory in the Subsymbolic–Symbolic Transition

In this article, a proposal is made for a new account of the subsymbolic-to-symbolic transition based on a contemporary conception of working memory. Symbolic cognition is a constituent of reasoning and language and requires an operating system that is flexible and can produce novel, yet coherent, representations of relations that are useful in adapting to the environment. Acquisition of such an operating system depends on dynamic binding to a coordinate system in working memory. Recent studies with infants have indicated that this ability develops late in the 1st year of life, which corresponds to the time when symbols emerge in infant cognition. It also corresponds to the time when infants cease to make the A-not-B error, which depends on dynamic creation of a link in memory between an object and its location in space. We propose that such dynamic binding is a previously unrecognized marker of the symbolic transition. Emergence of symbolic processes (e.g., language, theory of mind) should be predicted longitudinally by dynamic binding to a coordinate system.

Association of cortisol with neuropsychological assessment in older adults with generalized anxiety disorder

OBJECTIVES

Older adults with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) have elevated diurnal cortisol patterns and show an increased cortisol stress response, which may increase risk for cognitive dysfunction. The current secondary data analysis examined how neuropsychological assessment as a possible laboratory stressor affects cortisol levels in late-life GAD and, in turn, how cortisol levels affect cognitive performance.

METHODS

The current sample consisted of 69 individuals with late-life GAD and 39 psychiatrically healthy group-matched comparison participants. Cognitive performance was measured with a neuropsychological battery and salivary cortisol was collected at several time points. Hierarchical regressions were performed to assess the moderating role of cortisol in the relationship between GAD status and cognitive performance.

RESULTS

The results revealed that older adults with GAD showed significantly lower cortisol levels during neuropsychological assessment, compared to their baseline levels. Further, there was a significant interaction between post-neuropsychological assessment cortisol levels and GAD status on several measures of cognitive performance. The interaction indicated that there is a significant negative relationship between cortisol level and cognitive performance in the GAD participants and no such relationship in the comparison participants.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results revealed that participating in a neuropsychological assessment was associated with reduced cortisol in GAD participants, suggesting that refocusing attention such as engaging in cognitive tasks had a cortisol-lowering effect. Further, a higher cortisol level appears to have a detrimental effect on cognitive performance for individuals with GAD, but not psychiatrically healthy comparison participants. The methodological and treatment implications of these findings are discussed.

Analogical reasoning in children with specific language impairment

Usage-based theory considers analogical reasoning as a cognitive process required in language development. We hypothesized that difficulties with analogical reasoning could hinder the abstraction of construction schemas, thus slowing down morphosyntactic development for children with specific language impairment (SLI). We also hypothesized, in accordance with usage-based theory, that the same analogy mechanism is shared by linguistic and non-linguistic processes. The current study investigated the performance of 15 children with SLI in comparison with age-matched peers on a non-linguistic analogical reasoning task. Our experimental setting targeted two prerequisites of analogical reasoning: structural alignment and the discovery of relational similarity in comparison with perceptual similarity. The results obtained are compatible with our hypotheses according to which children with SLI would encounter problems building more abstract construction schemas, related to difficulties with analogical reasoning. The study also shows that children with SLI have specific cognitive difficulties regardless of their linguistic development.

Solving the Raven Progressive Matrices by adults with intellectual disability with/without Down syndrome: different cognitive patterns as indicated by eye-movements

Raven matrices are used for assessing fluid intelligence and the intellectual level of groups with low intelligence. Our study addresses qualitative analysis of information processing in Raven matrices performance among individuals with intellectual disability with that of their typically developed (TD) counterparts. Twenty-three adults with non-specific intellectual disability (NSID), 15 adults with Down syndrome (DS) and 35 children with TD matched for mental age, participated. Participants solved the Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices and five items from the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices while having their eye movements monitored. The overall percent of correct answers was significantly higher for the TD group compared to two ID group. Comparison of the eye movement pattern of each group indicated that the TD group spent more time on the matrices before shifting to the options, than the two ID groups. The TD group made significantly less switches from one rejoins to another, than the ID groups. The difference in the scanning pattern between the TD and the ID groups is interpreted as a reflection of two different types of strategies, Constructive matching and Response elimination, respectively. There were no differences in eye scanning between participants with NSID and those with DS.