Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-24-2018

Publication Title

Frontiers in Psychology

Volume

9

Pages

1-14

Abstract

Children’s cognitive control and knowledge at school entry predict growth rates in analogical reasoning skill over time; however, the mechanisms by which these factors interact and impact learning are unclear. We propose that inhibitory control (IC) is critical for developing both the relational representations necessary to reason and the ability to use these representations in complex problem solving. We evaluate this hypothesis using computational simulations in a model of analogical thinking, Discovery of Relations by Analogy/Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogy (DORA/LISA; Doumas et al., 2008). Longitudinal data from children who solved geometric analogy problems repeatedly over 6 months show three distinct learning trajectories though all gained somewhat: analogical reasoners throughout, non-analogical reasoners throughout, and transitional – those who start non-analogical and grew to be analogical. Varying the base level of top-down lateral inhibition in DORA affected the model’s ability to learn relational representations, which, in conjunction with inhibition levels used in LISA during reasoning, simulated accuracy rates and error types seen in the three different learning trajectories. These simulations suggest that IC may not only impact reasoning ability but may also shape the ability to acquire relational knowledge given reasoning opportunities.

Comments

Author Posting. © The Authors 2018. This article is posted here by permission of Frontiers Media for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Frontiers of Psychology, 2018, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01235

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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