TY - JOUR
T1 - From concrete examples to abstract relations
T2 - The rostrolateral prefrontal cortex integrates novel examples into relational categories
AU - Davis, Tyler
AU - Goldwater, Micah
AU - Giron, Josue
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by start-up funds to T.D. and a Texas Tech Center for Active Learning and Undergraduate Engagement
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - The ability to form relational categories for objects that share few features in common is a hallmark of human cognition. For example, anything that can play a preventative role, from a boulder to poverty, can be a "barrier." However, neurobiological research has focused solely on how people acquire categories defined by features. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study examines how relational and feature-based category learning compare in well-matched learning tasks. Using a computational model-based approach, we observed a cluster in left rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (rlPFC) that tracked quantitative predictions for the representational distance between test and training examples during relational categorization. Contrastingly, medial and dorsal PFC exhibited graded activation that tracked decision evidence during both feature-based and relational categorization. The results suggest that rlPFC computes an alignment signal that is critical for integrating novel examples during relational categorization whereas other PFC regions support more general decision functions.
AB - The ability to form relational categories for objects that share few features in common is a hallmark of human cognition. For example, anything that can play a preventative role, from a boulder to poverty, can be a "barrier." However, neurobiological research has focused solely on how people acquire categories defined by features. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study examines how relational and feature-based category learning compare in well-matched learning tasks. Using a computational model-based approach, we observed a cluster in left rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (rlPFC) that tracked quantitative predictions for the representational distance between test and training examples during relational categorization. Contrastingly, medial and dorsal PFC exhibited graded activation that tracked decision evidence during both feature-based and relational categorization. The results suggest that rlPFC computes an alignment signal that is critical for integrating novel examples during relational categorization whereas other PFC regions support more general decision functions.
KW - Category learning
KW - Entropy
KW - Reasoning
KW - Representational distance
KW - Same-different learning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85021308384&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/cercor/bhw099
DO - 10.1093/cercor/bhw099
M3 - Article
C2 - 27130661
AN - SCOPUS:85021308384
VL - 27
SP - 2652
EP - 2670
JO - Cerebral Cortex
JF - Cerebral Cortex
SN - 1047-3211
IS - 4
ER -