The impact of egocentric vs. allocentric attributions on the neural bases of reasoning about social rules

We usedthe “standard” and “switched” social contractversionsoftheWasonSelection-
task toinvestigatetheneuralbasesofhumanreasoningaboutsocialrules.Boththese
versions typicallyelicitthedeonticallycorrectanswer,i.e.theproperidentification ofthe
violations ofaconditionalobligation.Onlyinthestandardversionofthetask,however,
this responsecorrespondstothelogicallycorrectone.Wetookadvantageofthis
differential adherencetologicalvs.deonticalaccuracytotestthedifferentpredictionsof
logic rule-basedvs.visuospatialaccountsofinferentialabilitiesin14participantswho
solved thestandardandswitchedversionsoftheSelection-taskduringfunctional-
Magnetic-Resonance-Imaging.Bothversionsactivatedthewellknownleftfronto-parietal
network ofdeductivereasoning.Thestandardversionadditionallyrecruitedthemedial
parietal andrightinferiorparietalcortex,previouslyassociatedwithmentalimageryand
with theadoptionofegocentricvs.allocentricspatialreferenceframes.Theseresults
suggest thatvisuospatialprocessesencodingone'sownsubjectiveexperienceinsocial
interactions maysupportandshapetheinterpretationofdeductiveargumentsand/orthe
resulting inferences,thuscontributingtoelicitcontenteffectsinhumanreasoning.