Emergence of relational reasoning

We review recent theoretical and empirical work on the emergence of relational reasoning, drawing connections among the fields of comparative psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, cognitive science, and machine learning. Relational learning appears to involve multiple systems: a suite of Early Systems that are available to human infants and are shared to some extent with nonhuman animals; and a Late System that emerges in humans only, at approximately age three years. The Late System supports reasoning with explicit role-governed relations, and is closely tied to the functions of a frontoparietal network in the human brain. Recent work in cognitive science and machine learning suggests that humans (and perhaps machines) may acquire abstract relations from nonrelational inputs by means of processes that enable re-representation.

Automated summary

Relational reasoning involves multiple systems, with Early Systems available to human infants and nonhuman animals, and a Late System unique to humans. The Late System supports reasoning with explicit role-governed relations and is closely tied to the functions of a frontoparietal network in the human brain. Recent research in cognitive science and machine learning suggests that humans (and perhaps machines) may acquire abstract relations from nonrelational inputs through processes enabling re-representation.