We hypothesized that the ventromedial pFC (vmPFC) is critical for making transitive inferences (e.g., the logical operation that if A > B and B > C, then A > C). To test this, participants with focal vmPFC damage, brain-damaged comparison participants, and neurologically normal participants completed a transitive inference task consisting an ordered set of arbitrary patterns. Participants first learned through trial-and-error the relationships of the patterns (e.g., Pattern A > Pattern B, Pattern B > Pattern C). After initial learning, participants were presented with novel pairings, some of which required transitive inference (e.g., Pattern A > Pattern C from the relationship above). We observed that vmPFC damage led to a specific deficit in transitive inference, suggesting that an intact vmPFC is necessary for making normal transitive inferences. Given the usefulness of transitivity in inferring social relationships, this deficit may be one of the basic features of social conduct problems associated with vmPFC damage.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 118. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 February 2026.
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#404,944
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#1,700
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Outputs of similar age from Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
#1
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Altmetric has tracked 28,809,062 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,472 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 35 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
