Inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescence

<div><p>Existing concepts can be a major barrier to learning new counterintuitive concepts that contradict pre-existing experience-based beliefs or misleading perceptual cues. When reasoning about counterintuitive concepts, inhibitory control is thought to enable the suppression of incorrect concepts. This study investigated the association between inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescents (<i>N</i> = 90, 11–15 years). Both response and semantic inhibition were associated with counterintuitive science and maths reasoning, when controlling for age, general cognitive ability, and performance in control science and maths trials. Better response inhibition was associated with longer reaction times in counterintuitive trials, while better semantic inhibition was associated with higher accuracy in counterintuitive trials. This novel finding suggests that different aspects of inhibitory control may offer unique contributions to counterintuitive reasoning during adolescence and provides further support for the hypothesis that inhibitory control plays a role in science and maths reasoning.</p></div

Example time course of events in the inhibitory control tasks.

<p>(a) In the simple Go/No-Go, participants pressed the left or right key to indicate the location of the green square (Go trials), but withheld their response when the square was red (No-Go trials). (b) In the complex Go/No-Go, participants pressed the left or right key to indicate the location of the coloured square (Go trials), but withheld their response when a blue square followed a yellow square (No-Go trials). In both tasks 25% of trials were No-Go, as in previous studies (e.g. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0198973#pone.0198973.ref029" target="_blank">29</a>]), so that non-responses were infrequent and thus harder to inhibit, and the inter-stimulus interval was jittered between 600 and 800 ms. (c) In the numerical Stroop, participants pressed the key corresponding to the number of digits on the screen. On congruent trials, the number of digits and the digits themselves matched, while on incongruent trials they differed and participants had to inhibit the representation of the digits. Fifty percent of trials were incongruent as in prior tests of semantic inhibition (e.g. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0198973#pone.0198973.ref021" target="_blank">21</a>]) to maintain high levels of conflict and allow accuracy and RT comparisons between trial types. Stimuli remained on the screen until the participant responded or for a maximum of 1500 ms.</p

Example problem-sets for (a) science and (b) maths.

<p>Text and image size has been increased to enhance legibility. Correct and incorrect ‘buttons’ remained on the screen to remind participants which key to press.</p

Regression models for science and maths combined.

<p>Regression models for science and maths combined.</p

Accuracy and RT estimated marginal means in the inhibitory control tasks.

<p>Accuracy and RT estimated marginal means in the inhibitory control tasks.</p