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NEUROR: Exploring the Neural Basis of Reasoning

NCT04849208 · Status: COMPLETED · Type: OBSERVATIONAL · Enrollment: 63

Last updated 2024-07-12

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Decades of research have long established that people's reasoning can be biased by their intuitions and deviate from logical norms. Popular dual process models that characterize thinking as an interaction between intuitive and deliberate thought processes have presented an appealing explanation for this observation. Within this account logical reasoning is traditionally considered as a prototypical example of a task that requires effortful deliberate thinking. In recent years, however, a number of findings obtained with new behavioral paradigms have questioned the traditional dual process characterization. A key observation is that people can process logical principles in classic reasoning tasks intuitively without deliberation.

The fast or intuitive logic findings have far stretching theoretical implications for dual process theories and our view of human rationality. However, the nature of this newly discovered fast logical reasoning is not clear. One limitation is that its neural basis has not been explored. The primary goal of this project is to address this shortcoming in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. In the study adult participants will solve classic reasoning problems (i.e., variants of the bat-and-ball problem) in the scanner. Half of the trials will be traditional "Slow" trials in which participants get ample time to deliberate (i.e., 20 s). The other half of the trials will be "Fast" trials in which people do not get sufficient time to deliberate (i.e., 4 s deadline) and need to rely on intuitive processing.

All participants in the fMRI study will be healthy adults aged between 18-45. In addition to contrasting correct responders' brain activation during fast and slow trials, we will also contrast the fast and slow activations for correct and incorrect responses. This will allows us to identify brain regions associated with both correct and incorrect fast and slow logical responses and reach our study objective.

Conditions

  • Healthy

Interventions

OTHER

Presentation of fast and slow trials

In each task trial participants will solve a reasoning problem. Half of the trials will be traditional "Slow" trials in which participants get ample time to deliberate (i.e., 20 s). The other half of the trials will be "Fast" trials in which people do not get sufficient time to deliberate (i.e., 4 s deadline) and need to rely on intuitive processing

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Centre Hospitalier St Anne

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Catherine OPPENHEIM, Pr · Groupe Hospitalier Universitaire Paris - Psychiatrie & Neurosciences (GHU Paris)

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
45 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2021-08-04
Primary Completion
2022-02-08
Completion
2022-02-08

Countries

  • France

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT04849208 on ClinicalTrials.gov