We aim to investigate whether EEG dynamics differ in adults with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders), ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), compared with healthy subjects during the performance of an innovative cognitive task: Aristotle's valid and invalid syllogisms. We follow the Neuroanatomical differences type of criterion in assessing the results of our study in supporting or not the dual-process theory of Kahneman, 2011) (Systems I & II of thinking). We recorded EEGs from 14 scalp electrodes in 30 adults with ADHD, 30 with ASD and 24 healthy, normal subjects. The subjects were exposed in a set of innovative cognitive tasks (inducing varying cognitive loads), the Aristotle's four types of syllogism mentioned above. The multiscale entropy (MSE), a nonlinear information-theoretic measure or tool was computed to extract features that quantify the complexity of the EEG. The dynamics of the curves of the grand average of MSE values of the ADHD and ASD participants was significantly in higher levels for the majority of time scales, than the healthy subjects over a number of brain regions (electrodes locations), during the performance of both valid and invalid types of syllogism. This result is seemingly not in accordance of the broadly accepted ‘theory’ of in ‘pathological’ subjects, but actually this is not the case as explained in the text. ADHD subjects are engaged in System II of thinking, for both Valid and Invalid syllogism, ASD and Control in System I for valid and invalid syllogism, respectively. A surprising and ‘provocative’ result of this paper, as shown in the next sections, is that the Complexity-variability of ASD and ADHD subjects, when they face Aristotle's types of syllogisms, is higher than that of the control subjects. An explanation is suggested as described in the text. Also, in the case of invalid type of Aristotelian syllogisms, the linguistic and visuo-spatial systems are both engaged ONLY in the temporal and occipital regions of the brain, respectively, of ADHD subjects. In the case of valid type, both above systems are engaged in the temporal and occipital regions of the brain, respectively, of both ASD and ADHD subjects, while in the control subjects only the visuo-spatial type is engaged (Goel et al., 2000; Knauff, 2007). Based on the results of the analysis described in this work, the differences in the EEG complexity between the three groups of participants lead to the conclusion that cortical information processing is changed in ASD and ADHD adults, therefore their level of cortical activation may be insufficient to meet the peculiar cognitive demand of Aristotle's reasoning. The present paper suggest that MSE, is a powerful and efficient nonlinear measure in detecting neural dysfunctions in adults with ASD and ADHD characteristics, when they are called on to perform in a very demanding as well as innovative set of cognitive tasks, that can be considered as a new diagnostic ‘benchmark’ in helping detecting more effectively such type of disorders. A linear measure alone, as the typical PSD, is not capable in making such a distinction. The work contributes in shedding light on the neural mechanisms of syllogism/reasoning of Aristotelian type, as well as toward understanding how humans reason logically and why ‘pathological’ subjects deviate from the norms of formal logic.

中文翻译：

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由于亚里士多德的三段论/推理类型引起的认知负荷/需求，对自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 和注意力缺陷多动障碍 (ADHD) 的大脑活动进行复杂性分析。功率谱密度和多尺度熵 (MSE) 分析


我们的目的是调查患有 ASD（自闭症谱系障碍）、ADHD（注意力缺陷/多动障碍）的成年人在执行创新认知任务（亚里士多德的有效和无效三段论）时，与健康受试者相比，脑电图动态是否存在差异。我们遵循神经解剖学差异类型的标准来评估我们的研究结果是否支持卡尼曼的双过程理论，2011）（思维系统 I 和 II）。我们记录了 30 名 ADHD 成年人、30 名 ASD 成年人和 24 名健康正常受试者的 14 个头皮电极的脑电图。受试者接受一组创新的认知任务（引发不同的认知负荷），即上述亚里士多德的四种三段论。多尺度熵（MSE）是一种非线性信息理论测量或工具，用于提取量化脑电图复杂性的特征。在大多数时间尺度上，ADHD 和 ASD 参与者的 MSE 值总平均值曲线的动态水平显着高于健康受试者的多个大脑区域（电极位置）。三段论的有效和无效类型。这个结果看似不符合“病理”受试者广泛接受的“理论”，但实际上并非如文中所解释的那样。 ADHD 受试者分别参与有效和无效三段论的思维系统 II，ASD 和控制分别参与有效和无效三段论的系统 I。正如下一节所示，本文的一个令人惊讶且“具有挑战性”的结果是，当 ASD 和 ADHD 受试者面对亚里士多德的三段论类型时，他们的复杂性变异性高于对照受试者。 建议按照文中所述进行解释。此外，在亚里士多德三段论类型无效的情况下，语言系统和视觉空间系统都仅分别参与多动症受试者大脑的颞叶和枕叶区域。在有效类型的情况下，上述两个系统分别参与 ASD 和 ADHD 受试者的大脑颞叶和枕叶区域，而在对照受试者中，仅视觉空间类型参与（Goel 等人， 2000；可纳夫，2007）。根据本工作中描述的分析结果，三组参与者之间脑电图复杂性的差异得出结论：自闭症谱系障碍和多动症成人的皮质信息处理发生了变化，因此他们的皮质激活水平可能不足以满足亚里士多德推理特有的认知需求。本文提出，MSE 是一种强大而有效的非线性测量方法，用于检测具有 ASD 和 ADHD 特征的成年人的神经功能障碍，当他们被要求执行一组非常苛刻且创新的认知任务时，可以考虑作为新的诊断“基准”，帮助更有效地检测此类疾病。单独的线性测量（如典型的 PSD）无法做出这样的区分。这项工作有助于揭示亚里士多德式三段论/推理的神经机制，并有助于理解人类如何进行逻辑推理以及为什么“病态”主体偏离形式逻辑规范。