Editorial: The Reasoning Brain: The Interplay between Cognitive Neuroscience and Theories of Reasoning

Abstract

The ability to reach logical conclusions on the basis of prior information is central to human cognition. Yet, it is generally agreed that the state of our knowledge regarding the mechanisms underlying logical reasoning remains incomplete and highly fragmented (e.g., Khemlani and Johnson-Laird, ). The emergence of functional neuroimaging over the past 20 years-and its ability to examine reasoning at the level of recruitment of cortical systems-provides an additional source of data to, not only better understand reasoning as a phenomenon, but to test different theoretical approaches. This has t