The causal mechanisms underlying analogical reasoning performance improvement by executive attention intervention

Analogical reasoning is important for human. We have found that a short executive attention intervention improved analogical reasoning performance in healthy young adults. Nevertheless, previous electrophysiological evidence was limited for comprehensively characterizing the neural mechanisms underlying the improvement. And although we hypothesized that the intervention improved active inhibitory control and attention shift first and then relation integration, it is still unclear whether there are two sequential cognitive neural activities were indeed changed during analogical reasoning. In the present study, we combined hypothesis with multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to explore the effects of the intervention on electrophysiology. Results showed that in the resting state after the intervention, alpha and high gamma power and the functional connectivity between the anterior and middle in the alpha band could discriminate the experimental group from the active control group, respectively. These indicated that the intervention influenced the activity of multiple bands and the interaction of frontal and parietal regions. In the analogical reasoning, alpha, theta, and gamma activities could also fulfill such discrimination, and furthermore, they were sequential (alpha first, theta, and gamma later). These results directly supported our previous hypothesis. The present study deepens our understanding about how executive attention contributes to higher-order cognition.