Environmental Influences on Neural Systems of Reasoning and Implications for the Assessment of Intellectual Capacity

• In Event: Policy Implications for Science and Math Education, Visual Spatial Learning, and Neuromyth

Abstract

Constructivism contends that we acquire knowledge best by experience and environmental context determines quality of learning. Educational psychology has held a long interest in determining heuristics that would increase our pragmatic capacities to implement constructivist learning. We examine some of these heuristics, employing the cognitive process relational complexity (RC), defined as the number of visual dimensions considered during problem solving on a matrix reasoning task and a well-documented measure of mature reasoning capacity in the human brain. This study determines how the visual environment influences RC, specifically color and visual contrast, on RC during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To determine the specific contributions of sensory demand and relational integration to reasoning, participants performed a non-verbal matrix task comprised of color, no-color line, or black-white visual contrast conditions parametrically varied by complexity (relations 0, 1, 2). The use of matrix reasoning is ecologically valid for its psychometric relevance and for its potential to link the processing of psychophysically specific visual properties with various levels of relational complexity during reasoning. The role of these psychophysical elements is important because matrix reasoning tests assess intellectual aptitude from how well one problem solves during these seemingly context-less exercises. This is a first step examining the psychophysical underpinnings of performance on these types of problems.

Author

• Mary Layne Kalbfleisch, George Washington University