Brain Advance Access originally published online on February 19, 2004
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Brain, Vol. 127, No. 4, 783-790, 2004
© 2004 Guarantors of Brain
doi: 10.1093/brain/awh086
Asymmetrical involvement of frontal lobes in social reasoning
1 Cognitive Neuroscience Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA and 2 Office of Policy, Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Maryland, USA, and 3 Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Correspondence to: Dr Vinod Goel, Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M3J 1P3 E-mail: vgoel{at}yorku.ca
The frontal lobes are widely implicated in logical reasoning. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest that frontal lobe involvement in reasoning is asymmetric (L>R) and increases with the presence of familiar, meaningful content in the reasoning situation. However, neuroimaging data can only provide sufficiency criteria. To determine the necessity of prefrontal involvement in logical reasoning, we tested 19 patients with focal frontal lobe lesions and 19 age- and education-matched normal controls on the Wason Card Selection Task, while manipulating social knowledge. Patients and controls performed equivalently on the arbitrary rule condition. Normal controls showed the expected improvement in the social knowledge conditions, but frontal lobe patients failed to show this facilitation in performance. Furthermore, left hemisphere patients were more affected than right hemisphere patients, suggesting that frontal lobe involvement in reasoning is asymmetric (L>R) and necessary for reasoning about social situations.
Key Words: reasoning; frontal lobes; Wason selection task; social knowledge
Abbreviations: IQ= intelligence quotient; WST = Wason selection task
Received June 24, 2003. Revised September 29, 2003. Accepted December 1, 2003.
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