NEURAL SUBSTRATES OF FLUID REASONING - AN FMRI STUDY OF NEOCORTICAL ACTIVATION DURING PERFORMANCE OF THE RAVEN PROGRESSIVE MATRICES TEST

We examined blain activation, as measured by functional magnetic reson ance imaging, during problem serving in seven young, healthy participa nts. Participants solved problems selected from the Raven's Progressiv e Matrices Test, a test known to predict performance on a wide range o f reasoning tasks. In three conditions, participants solved problems r equiring (1) analytic reasoning; (2) figural or visuospatial reasoning ; or (3) simple pattern matching that served as a perceptual-motor con trol. Right frontal and bilateral parietal regions were activated more by figural than control problems. Bilateral frontal and left parietal , occipital, and temporal regions were activated more by analytic than figural problems. All of these regions were activated more by analyti c than match problems. Many of these activations occurred in regions a ssociated with working memory. Figural reasoning activated areas invol ved in spatial and object working memory. Analytic reasoning activated additional areas involved in verbal working memory and domain-indepen dent associative and executive processes. These results suggest that f luid reasoning is mediated by a composite of working memory systems. ( C) 1997 Academic Press.