A Neuro-Cognitive Theory of Relational Reasoning with Mental Models and Visual Images

Recent brain imaging studies have provided evidence that the parietal cortex plays a key role in reasoning based on mental models, which are supposed to be of abstract spatial nature. However, these studies have also shown concurrent activation of visual association cortices which have often been interpreted as evidence for the role of visual mental imagery in reasoning. The present chapter resolves these inconsistencies. I argue that visual brain areas are only involved if the problem information is easy to visualize and when this information must be processed and maintained in visual working memory. A regular reasoning process, however, does not involve visual images but more abstract spatial representations—spatial mental models—held in parietal cortices. Only these spatial representations are crucial for the genuine reasoning processes