{"pk":26100,"title":"The Role of the Prefrontal Cortex in Inductive Reasoning: An fNIRS Study","subtitle":null,"abstract":"This study examined neural activity associated with inductive\ninference using functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy\n(fNIRS). Induction is a powerful way of generating new\nknowledge by generalizing known information to novel items\nor contexts. Two key bases for identifying targets for induction\nare perceptual similarity, and rules that specify category-\nrelevant features. Similarity- and rule-based induction have\nbeen argued to represent distinct mechanisms, such that only\nrule-based induction requires executive function processes\nassociated with the prefrontal cortex (PFC), namely: active\nmaintenance of representations and inhibition of salient but\nirrelevant features. Here, we address the lack of direct\nempirical evidence supporting this possibility by recording\nPFC activity using fNIRS while adult participants (n=24)\nperformed an inductive inference task. We found that PFC\nactivity during induction was greater when participants had\nbeen taught a category-inclusion rule versus when participants\ncould only rely on overall similarity.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"inductive inference; fNIRS; PFC"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5x59f8h1","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Layla","middle_name":"","last_name":"Unger","name_suffix":"","institution":"Carnegie Mellon University","department":""},{"first_name":"Jaeah","middle_name":"","last_name":"Kim","name_suffix":"","institution":"Carnegie Mellon University","department":""},{"first_name":"Theodore","middle_name":"","last_name":"Huppert","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Pittsburgh","department":""},{"first_name":"Julia","middle_name":"","last_name":"Badger","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Oxford","department":""},{"first_name":"Anna","middle_name":"V.","last_name":"Fisher","name_suffix":"","institution":"Carnegie Mellon University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2016-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/26100/galley/15736/download/"}]}