Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to disentangle the neurocognitive subprocesses underlying different spatial reasoning problems with event-related potentials (ERP) technique. Fourteen healthy Chinese young students (6 males and 8 females, mean age 25.2±2.2 years) without history of neurological disorders or chronic disease participated in this study. There were four kinds of three-term spatial reasoning task and one kind of memory task (baseline, BS). The term orders are AB-CB (A refers to the end term of the first premise, and C refers to the end term of the second premise) in all tasks. All stimuli were generated with E-prime 1.0 software and displayed in black with a white background on a computer screen. EEG was recorded from the scalp through 32 non-polarizable Ag/AgCl sintered electrodes in pre-configured caps, with a 500 Hz sampling rate using the Neuroscan EEG system. The ERP waveforms were time-locked to the onset of premise 2. Mean amplitudes in each time window were analyzed using three-way repeated-measures analyses of variance. The behavioral results indicated that memory task (BS) were easier than reasoning tasks (AO and AT-V) except for no valid multi-model problems (AT-NV). But both multi-model reasoning tasks were easier than one-model reasoning task. ERP data showed that reasoning tasks elicited more positive amplitudes than baseline task from 200ms to 900ms.The content-based spatial reasoning elicited similar waveform to that of no-content spatial reasoning. One-model problem elicited different waveform with valid two-model problem. The latter elicited a more positive waveform than the former in the time window of 300-600ms. Valid two-model problems elicited different waveform with two model and no-valid problems in the time window of 200-600ms. In conclusion, the behavioral data show that the place of indeterminate premises and the difficulty of spatial problems affected the process of resolving uncertain spatial reasoning. ERP data suggest that spatial reasoning and memory might reflect different requirement of attention resources. Reasoning need integrate information of two premises, while memory only maintain premise in working memory. When confronted with two-model problem, people process the stimulus and make a primary decision after 200ms, then construction of a single mental model with an annotation. Moreover, visual image do not affect spatial reasoning significantly.

Key words: spatial reasoning, event-related potentials, mental model theory

摘要： 记录14名正常成人完成四种空间推理及一种基线任务（记忆任务）时的事件相关电位，对空间推理的脑电活动情况进行考察。研究结果表明，在200ms-900ms窗口，推理任务比基线任务诱发更大的正成分。对不同推理任务的比较表明，具体与抽象材料的单模型推理诱发相似的波形；单模型与有效的双模型任务诱发的ERP成分明显不同，在300ms-600ms窗口，后者比前者诱发更大的正波；在200-600ms时间窗口，存在有效结论与无有效结论的双模型问题也诱发明显不同的ERP波形。研究的结果表明，推理与记忆涉及不同的加工要求，推理需要整合前提的信息，而记忆只需要储存前提信息。在解决双模型推理问题时，从200ms开始，被试就对刺激材料进行初步的加工与判断，随后对双模型问题采用有注解的单模型加工策略。另外，不同材料的空间推理任务之间的波形较为一致，表明视觉表象并未明显影响空间推理过程。

关键词: 空间推理, 事件相关电位, 心理模型理论