Primitive visual channels have a causal role in cognitive transfer

William Saban*, Gal Raz, Roland H. Grabner, Shai Gabay*, Roi Cohen Kadosh*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8759
JournalScientific Reports
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2021
Externally publishedYes

Funding

FundersFunder number
James S. McDonnell Foundation 21st Century Science Initiative in Understanding Human Cognition
Wellcome Trust203139/Z/16/Z
Israel Science Foundation1124/14

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