An fMRI analysis of the efficacy of Euler diagrams in logical reasoning

Yuri Sato; Sayako Masuda; Yoshiaki Someya; Takeo Tsujii; Shigeru Watanabe

doi:10.1109/VLHCC.2015.7357209

An fMRI analysis of the efficacy of Euler diagrams in logical reasoning

Yuri Sato, Sayako Masuda, Yoshiaki Someya, Takeo Tsujii, Shigeru Watanabe

University of Brighton

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceeding with ISSN or ISBN › Conference contribution with ISSN or ISBN › peer-review

Abstract

We compared participant performance and brain activation changes during a syllogism-solving task with and with out Euler diagrams, using functional magnetic resonance imaging ( RI). Our experiment showed that when Euler diagrams were present, (i) response times in the task were signi cantly shorter than those in the usual reasoning task comprising only sentences, and (ii) the magnitude of activation in the left middle frontal gyrus (near BA 10), left inferior PFC (near BA 47), and left dorsal PFC (BA 6) was reduced. Result (i) provides evidence for the occurrence of cognitive offloading even when participants handle information of both sentences and diagrams in reasoning tasks. Result (ii) suggests that complex processes of inferences can be replaced by simple diagram manipulation. It is argued that cognitive details that are not fully speci ed by behavioral studies can be made salient using neuroscientific methods.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015)
Place of Publication	Los Alamitos, CA
Publisher	IEEE Computer Society Press
Pages	143-151
Number of pages	9
ISBN (Print)	9781467374576
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/VLHCC.2015.7357209
Publication status	Published - 17 Dec 2015
Event	Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015) - Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 2015 Duration: 17 Dec 2015 → …

Conference

Conference	Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015)
Period	17/12/15 → …

Access to Document

10.1109/VLHCC.2015.7357209Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

@inproceedings{ced872ca60c94b2a97120260db6efe14,

title = "An fMRI analysis of the efficacy of Euler diagrams in logical reasoning",

abstract = "We compared participant performance and brain activation changes during a syllogism-solving task with and with out Euler diagrams, using functional magnetic resonance imaging ( RI). Our experiment showed that when Euler diagrams were present, (i) response times in the task were signi cantly shorter than those in the usual reasoning task comprising only sentences, and (ii) the magnitude of activation in the left middle frontal gyrus (near BA 10), left inferior PFC (near BA 47), and left dorsal PFC (BA 6) was reduced. Result (i) provides evidence for the occurrence of cognitive offloading even when participants handle information of both sentences and diagrams in reasoning tasks. Result (ii) suggests that complex processes of inferences can be replaced by simple diagram manipulation. It is argued that cognitive details that are not fully speci ed by behavioral studies can be made salient using neuroscientific methods.",

author = "Yuri Sato and Sayako Masuda and Yoshiaki Someya and Takeo Tsujii and Shigeru Watanabe",

year = "2015",

month = dec,

day = "17",

doi = "10.1109/VLHCC.2015.7357209",

language = "English",

isbn = "9781467374576",

pages = "143--151",

booktitle = "Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015)",

publisher = "IEEE Computer Society Press",

note = "Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015) ; Conference date: 17-12-2015",

}

Sato, Y, Masuda, S, Someya, Y, Tsujii, T & Watanabe, S 2015, An fMRI analysis of the efficacy of Euler diagrams in logical reasoning. in Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015). IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, pp. 143-151, Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015), 17/12/15. https://doi.org/10.1109/VLHCC.2015.7357209

An fMRI analysis of the efficacy of Euler diagrams in logical reasoning. / Sato, Yuri; Masuda, Sayako; Someya, Yoshiaki et al.
Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015). Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press, 2015. p. 143-151.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceeding with ISSN or ISBN › Conference contribution with ISSN or ISBN › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - An fMRI analysis of the efficacy of Euler diagrams in logical reasoning

AU - Sato, Yuri

AU - Masuda, Sayako

AU - Someya, Yoshiaki

AU - Tsujii, Takeo

AU - Watanabe, Shigeru

PY - 2015/12/17

Y1 - 2015/12/17

N2 - We compared participant performance and brain activation changes during a syllogism-solving task with and with out Euler diagrams, using functional magnetic resonance imaging ( RI). Our experiment showed that when Euler diagrams were present, (i) response times in the task were signi cantly shorter than those in the usual reasoning task comprising only sentences, and (ii) the magnitude of activation in the left middle frontal gyrus (near BA 10), left inferior PFC (near BA 47), and left dorsal PFC (BA 6) was reduced. Result (i) provides evidence for the occurrence of cognitive offloading even when participants handle information of both sentences and diagrams in reasoning tasks. Result (ii) suggests that complex processes of inferences can be replaced by simple diagram manipulation. It is argued that cognitive details that are not fully speci ed by behavioral studies can be made salient using neuroscientific methods.

AB - We compared participant performance and brain activation changes during a syllogism-solving task with and with out Euler diagrams, using functional magnetic resonance imaging ( RI). Our experiment showed that when Euler diagrams were present, (i) response times in the task were signi cantly shorter than those in the usual reasoning task comprising only sentences, and (ii) the magnitude of activation in the left middle frontal gyrus (near BA 10), left inferior PFC (near BA 47), and left dorsal PFC (BA 6) was reduced. Result (i) provides evidence for the occurrence of cognitive offloading even when participants handle information of both sentences and diagrams in reasoning tasks. Result (ii) suggests that complex processes of inferences can be replaced by simple diagram manipulation. It is argued that cognitive details that are not fully speci ed by behavioral studies can be made salient using neuroscientific methods.

U2 - 10.1109/VLHCC.2015.7357209

DO - 10.1109/VLHCC.2015.7357209

M3 - Conference contribution with ISSN or ISBN

SN - 9781467374576

SP - 143

EP - 151

BT - Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015)

PB - IEEE Computer Society Press

CY - Los Alamitos, CA

T2 - Proceedings of 2015 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2015)

Y2 - 17 December 2015

ER -

An fMRI analysis of the efficacy of Euler diagrams in logical reasoning

Abstract

Conference

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this