Neural Oscillation Profiles of a Premise Monotonicity Effect During Semantic Category-Based Induction

A premise monotonicity effect during category-based induction is a robust effect, in which participants are more likely to generalize properties shared by many instances rather than those shared by few instances. Previous studies have shown the eventrelated potentials (ERPs) elicited by this effect. However, the neural oscillations in the brain underlying this effect are not well known, and such oscillations can convey task-related cognitive processing information which is lost in traditional ERP analysis. In the present study, the phase-locked and non-phase-locked power of neural oscillations related to this effect were measured by manipulating the premise sample size [single (S) vs. two (T)] in a semantic category-based induction task. For phase-locked power, the results illustrated that the premise monotonicity effect was revealed by anterior delta power, suggesting differences in working memory updating. The results also illustrated that T arguments evoked larger posterior theta-alpha power than S arguments, suggesting that T arguments led to enhanced subjectively perceived inductive confidence than S arguments. For non-phase-locked power, the results illustrated that the premise monotonicity effect was indicated by anterior theta power, suggesting that the differences in sample size were related to a change in the need for cognitive control and the implementation of adaptive cognitive control. Moreover, the results illustrated that the premise monotonicity effect was revealed by alpha-beta power, which suggested the unification of sentence and inference-driven information. Therefore, the neural oscillation profiles of the premise monotonicity effect during semantic category-based induction were elucidated, and supported the connectionist models of category-based induction.