Contradiction in universal and particular reasoning.
A wide range of essential reasoning tasks rely on contradiction identification, a cornerstone of human rationality, communication and debate founded on the inversion of the logical operators "Every" and "Some." A high-density electroencephalographic (EEG) study was performed in 11 normal young adults. The cerebral network involved in the identification of contradiction included the orbito-frontal and anterior-cingulate cortices and the temporo-polar cortices. The event-related dynamic of this network showed an early negative deflection lasting 500 ms after sentence presentation. This was followed by a positive deflection lasting 1.5 s, which was different for the two logical operators. A lesser degree of network activation (either in neuron number or their level of phase locking or both) occurred while processing statements with "Some," suggesting that this was a relatively simpler scenario with one example to be figured out, instead of the many examples or the absence of a counterexample searched for while processing statements with "Every." A self-generated reward system seemed to resonate the recruited circuitry when the contradictory task is successfully completed.
Medaglia
Maria Teresa
MT
Philosophy Department, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, University Roma Tre, Rome, Italy.
Tecchio
Franca
F
Seri
Stefano
S
Di Lorenzo
Giorgio
G
Rossini
Paolo M
PM
Porcaro
Camillo
C
D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D012201:Reward; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted