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A pioneering study reveals the cerebral basis of non-verbal deductive reasoning

In the field of neuroscience, there are still many unknowns about the format and mental structure with which thoughts are represented. This pioneering study, led by the Center for Brain and Cognition at UPF, provides further insight into these forms of representation by exploring, for the first time, the brain activation that occurs during deductive reasoning processes triggered by watching simple dynamic visual scenes. The use of non-verbal material such as simple movies –devoid of verbal content– represents a new methodology for studying thought outside the realm of language.

We often express our thoughts in words to communicate ideas, present arguments or make decisions. But what format and structure do these thoughts take in the brain? In the fields of philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, there are still many unknowns surrounding this issue, and it is unclear whether thoughts are represented in the mind by mental models (e.g. images) or by structures and rules similar to those governing language. To make progress on this matter, researchers from the Center for Brain and Cognition at UPF and other collaborating centres have, for the first time, explored the regions of the brain that activate when only visual scenes that elicit logical inferences are observed.

This study, entitled “Seeing inferences: brain dynamics and oculomotor signatures of non-verbal deduction”, was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. Led by Ana Martín (UPF and Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris), it features a number of international researchers (Christophe Pallier, from the Neurospin Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, France; and Carlo Reverberi and Aldo Solari, from the University of Milano-Bicocca), together with other researchers from the Center for Brain and Cognition as Luca Bonatti (ICREA-UPF) or Luca Filippin.

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Reference:

Martín-Salguero, A., Reverberi, C., Solari, A. et al. Seeing inferences: brain dynamics and oculomotor signatures of non-verbal deduction. Sci Rep 13, 2341 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-29307-3