Neural Correlates of Belief-Laden Reasoning during Premise Processing: An Event-Related Potential Study

Abstract

In this study, electrophysiological correlates of belief-laden reasoning were investigated. As subjects, trained participants were required to draw a logical conclusion after being exposed to 4 conditional arguments: the inhibitory content of modus tollens (ICMT), facilitatory content of modus tollens (FCMT), inhibitory content of denial of the antecedent (ICDA) and facilitatory content of denial of the antecedent (FCDA). Event-related potentials were employed to record the processing of minor premises. The results show that in comparison with FCMT, a greater negativity in the ICMT developed during both the 400- to 600- and the 800- to 1,600-ms time windows. A greater anterior cingulate cortex activity observed in the 800- to 1,600-ms time window in ICMT could reflect a detection of the conflict between empirical beliefs and logical rules. However, the components elicited by ICDA and FCDA were not significantly different. The results indicate that logical training influenced MT and DA forms of belief-laden reasoning in different ways and different strategies were likely adopted in the inference processes.