Paradoxical Reasoning: An fMRI Study

Paradoxes are a special form of reasoning leading to absurd inferences in contrast to logical reasoning that is used to reach valid conclusions. A functional MRI (fMRI) study was conducted to investigate the neural substrates of paradoxical and deductive reasoning. Twenty-four healthy participants w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in psychology 2022-05, Vol.13, p.850491-850491
Main Authors: Belekou, Antigoni, Papageorgiou, Charalabos, Karavasilis, Efstratios, Tsaltas, Eleftheria, Kelekis, Nikolaos, Klein, Christoph, Smyrnis, Nikolaos
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
deductive reasoning
fMRI
fronto-parietal brain activation patterns
fronto-temporal brain activation patterns
paradoxical syllogism
Psychology
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Summary:Paradoxes are a special form of reasoning leading to absurd inferences in contrast to logical reasoning that is used to reach valid conclusions. A functional MRI (fMRI) study was conducted to investigate the neural substrates of paradoxical and deductive reasoning. Twenty-four healthy participants were scanned using fMRI, while they engaged in reasoning tasks based on arguments, which were either Zeno's like paradoxes (paradoxical reasoning) or Aristotelian arguments (deductive reasoning). Clusters of significant activation for paradoxical reasoning were located in bilateral inferior frontal and middle temporal gyrus. Clusters of significant activation for deductive reasoning were located in bilateral superior and inferior parietal lobe, precuneus, and inferior frontal gyrus. These results confirmed that different brain activation patterns are engaged for paradoxical vs. deductive reasoning providing a basis for future studies on human physiological as well as pathological reasoning.
ISSN:1664-1078
1664-1078
DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.850491