文章基本信息

标题：Primitive visual channels have a causal role in cognitive transfer
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作者：William Saban ; Gal Raz ; Roland H. Grabner 等
期刊名称：Scientific Reports
电子版ISSN：2045-2322
出版年度：2021
卷号：11
DOI：10.1038/s41598-021-88271-y
语种：English
出版社：Springer Nature
摘要：Scientific investigations have long emphasized the cortex’s role in cognitive transfer and arithmetic abilities. To date, however, this assumption has not been thoroughly empirically investigated. Here we demonstrated that primitive mechanisms—lower visual channels—have a causal role in cognitive transfer of complex skills such as symbolic arithmetic. We found that exposing only one monocular channel to a visuospatial training resulted in a larger transfer effect in the trained monocular channel compared to the untrained monocular channel. Such cognitive transfer was found for both novel figural-spatial problems (near transfer) and novel subtraction problems (far transfer). Importantly, the benefits of the trained eye were not observed in old problems and in other tasks that did not involve visuospatial abilities (the Stroop task, a multiplication task). These results challenge the exclusive role of the cortex in cognitive transfer and complex arithmetic. In addition, the results suggest a new mechanism for the emergence of cognitive skills, that could be shared across different species.