Messing Up the Mind? Analogical Reasoning with Metaphors

Transient Neural Activation of Abstract Relations on an Incidental Analogy Task

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_01622 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 77-88 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Wei-Chun Wang ◽

Liang-Tien Hsieh ◽

Gowri Swamy ◽

Silvia A. Bunge

Keyword(s):

Analogical Reasoning ◽

Functional Neuroimaging ◽

Mental Representations ◽

Semantic Relatedness ◽

Neural Activation ◽

Abstract Concepts ◽

Neural Representations ◽

General Abstract ◽

The Mind ◽

Relational Priming

Although a large proportion of the lexicon consists of abstract concepts, little is known about how they are represented by the brain. Here, we investigated how the mind represents relations shared between sets of mental representations that are superficially unrelated, such as car–engine and dog–tongue, but that nonetheless share a more general, abstract relation, such as whole–part. Participants saw a pair of words on each trial and were asked to indicate whether they could think of a relation between them. Importantly, they were not explicitly asked whether different word pairs shared the same relation, as in analogical reasoning tasks. We observed representational similarity for abstract relations in regions in the “conceptual hub” network, even when controlling for semantic relatedness between word pairs. By contrast, we did not observe representational similarity in regions previously implicated in explicit analogical reasoning. A given relation was sometimes repeated across sequential word pairs, allowing us to test for behavioral and neural priming of abstract relations. Indeed, we observed faster RTs and greater representational similarity for primed than unprimed trials, suggesting that mental representations of abstract relations are transiently activated on this incidental analogy task. Finally, we found a significant correlation between behavioral and neural priming across participants. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate relational priming using functional neuroimaging and to show that neural representations are strengthened by relational priming. This research shows how abstract concepts can be brought to mind momentarily, even when not required for task performance.

Download Full-text

How Homo economicus lost her mind and how we can revive her

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x1800033x ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 ◽

Author(s):

Peter DeScioli

Keyword(s):

Economic Thought ◽

History Of Economic Thought ◽

Homo Economicus ◽

Economic Theories ◽

Target Article ◽

History Of ◽

The Mind ◽

And Behavior

AbstractThe target article by Boyer & Petersen (B&P) contributes a vital message: that people have folk economic theories that shape their thoughts and behavior in the marketplace. This message is all the more important because, in the history of economic thought, Homo economicus was increasingly stripped of mental capacities. Intuitive theories can help restore the mind of Homo economicus.

Download Full-text