Executive Functions and Improvement of Thinking: An Intervention Program to Enhance Deductive Reasoning Abilities

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Application of research often lags behind theoretical advances, requiring interdisciplinary integration.
• Executive functions, including working memory (WM), are crucial for higher-level thinking processes like deductive reasoning.
• Deductive reasoning involves sequential thinking, meta-deductive knowledge, and representation manipulation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design a deductive reasoning intervention based on executive functions.
• To present a novel theoretical framework on executive function and higher-level cognition.
• To critically analyze cognitive training's potential and limitations.

Main Methods:

• Integrated diverse research literature to conceptualize the intervention.
• Developed a metacognitive training procedure focusing on deduction and executive functions.
• Incorporated simultaneous training of working memory (WM) and specific executive functions (attention, inhibition, updating).

Main Results:

• The proposed training procedure integrates direct instruction on deduction and meta-deductive strategies.
• It simultaneously trains working memory (WM) and executive functions like attention control and response inhibition.
• The program includes training on complex WM tasks analogous to deduction.

Conclusions:

• The intervention aims to improve deductive reasoning in experimental settings.
• It seeks to enhance students' ability to identify fallacies and automatize logical skills.
• The program intends to foster the application of logical intuitions in real-world contexts.