1 University of Pittsburgh, Psychology, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA, 2 Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA and 3 University of California at Davis, Psychiatry and Psychology, Davis, CA 95817, USA
Address correspondence to A.D. Barber, University of Pittsburgh, Psychology, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Email: adbarber{at}pitt.edu.
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Abstract |
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Key Words: frontal parietal task switching conflict effect preparation
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Introduction |
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Electrophysiology studies find that neurons in the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) fire when relevant information must be maintained across a delay (Goldman-Rakic, 1987; Levy and Goldman-Rakic, 1999
). Similarly, functional neuroimaging studies show DLPFC activity increases parametrically with working memory load during the preparatory period of the task when information must be maintained (Cohen et al., 1997
). However, this activity is not a reflection of maintenance per se. DLPFC activity also occurs during performance of tasks without a delay period (Merriam et al., 2001
; Bunge et al., 2002
). This suggests that activity in this region not only increases with maintenance demands, but also as a function of other control operations. For instance, other studies implicate DLPFC activity in allocating attentional resources (MacDonald, et al., 2000
), selecting between competing responses (Rowe et al., 2000
; Bunge et al., 2002
) and overcoming residual inhibition (Dreher and Berman, 2002
).
Another region of the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), has also been implicated in cognitive control. MacDonald et al. (2000) found that this region is active during the target phase of a task when competing responses induce conflict. It was suggested that activity in the ACC might interact with the DLPFC to adjust cognitive control based on the amount of response conflict induced by the task. Models of a dorsolateral prefrontalanterior cingulate cortical loop (Botvinick et al., 2001
) propose that when response conflict occurs, the ACC monitors response output and signals the DLPFC for increased allocation of attentional resources. This model hypothesizes that the monitoring and signaling function of the ACC allows for modification of attention based on task demands.
While this DLPFCACC system has been implicated in tasks requiring that a prepotent response tendency be overcome, its role in task switching has not been established. Various task switching paradigms employ manipulations, such as varying the degree of overlap in stimulus and/or response attributes (Allport et al., 1994; Meiran, 2000), which might induce conflict and, therefore, call for the recruitment of this system. Some studies have found higher DLPFC activity for switch trials compared with repeat trials (Dove et al., 2000
; Sohn et al., 2000
), while others do not find DLPFC activity for task switching manipulations (Konishi et al., 1998
, 1999
; Nakahara et al., 2002
). Task switching often activates the posterior parietal cortex to a greater extent in switch than repeat trials (Dove et al., 2000
; Kimberg et al., 2000
; Sohn et al., 2000
) and this region has been implicated in stimulusresponse (SR) associations (Bunge et al., 2002
).
The behavioral switch cost incurred from task switching paradigms is often used as a measure of cognitive control. However, it is not clear whether control processes are necessarily recruited during task switching. Allport and Wylie (2000) hypothesized that the switch cost may be accounted for by the carryover of previous task processing into the current trial. This view holds that an extra control process is not necessary to account for the switch cost. Meiran et al. (2000)
suggest that there are at least three component processes that contribute to the switch cost. They found that increasing the responsecue interval (RCI) reduced the switch cost, which supports the Allport and Wylie (2000)
task carryover effect. Further, they confirmed the formulation of Rogers and Monsell (1995)
of two contributions to the switch cost, an anticipatory component and a stimulus-triggered component. Meiran et al. (2000)
found that although increasing the cuetarget interval (CTI) decreased the switch cost by reducing the anticipatory component, CTI increases beyond 600 ms did not lead to an additional reduction in the switch cost. This residual switch cost reflects a stimulus-driven component, which Meiran et al. (2000)
implicate in reconfiguring SR mappings.
The current study employs the task-cueing paradigm used by Meiran et al. (2000), which allows for the independent examination of the three task switching components. The current task design will focus on the anticipatory and stimulus-triggered component processes. During the CTI, the anticipatory or preparatory effect of the switch cost will be examined. This effect will be indexed in the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results as additional activity during the CTI for switch trials as compared with repeat trials. The CTI used in the current study (7.5 s) is sufficiently long for preparation for task switching to complete before the target stimulus appears. For this reason, the stimulus-triggered contribution to task switching may be considered independent of any anticipatory effects.
The third component of task switching discussed by Meiran et al. (2000) was the dissipating processing of the previous trial's task set. According to their results, this component should not affect current trial processing when a sufficiently long RCI is used. Meiran et al. (2000)
showed that for RCIs >1 s the switch cost reduction becomes very slow (
1.7 s reduction per 100 ms of RCI increase). While these results suggest that for the current paradigm the previous trial's task set [Rogers and Monsell (1995)
used the term task set to refer to an effective intention to perform a particular task. In their words, to adopt a task-set is to select, link, and configure the elements of a chain of processes that will accomplish a task. For the purposes of this paper, task set refers to the repertoire of stimuli, responses and processing stages employed by a particular task condition] processing should minimally affect the current task's processing (since the RCI of the current task is 12 s), Allport and Wylie (2000)
find that long-term, retrieved task bindings contribute to the switch cost. This retrieval of the inappropriate task's SR mappings should be present on all switch trials since the same stimulus and response sets are relevant for both tasks.
For the current study, a cued SR incompatibility task, maximizing the SR overlap between the two conditions, was chosen in order to increase control demands. Subjects' tendency to perform the prepotent task was set up in several ways. First, the SR mapping was more intuitive (i.e. the stimulus l corresponded to a response with the left finger); second, trials of this condition were more frequent (70% of trials); and third, the first three trials of every block were prepotent trials.
The present study aimed at dissociating frontal and parietal regions involved in overcoming a prepotent response tendency from those involved in task switching. In particular, we expected to replicate the MacDonald et al. (2000) results in an attempt to validate the role of the DLPFCACC system in overcoming a prepotent response tendency and conflict reduction. Further, we aimed to determine whether this system is also recruited for task switching. In order to distinguish control processes associated with these two cognitive constructs, two manipulations were performed: (i) prepotency and (ii) task switching. The first manipulation compared differences between prepotent trials and nonprepotent trials for both behavioral and fMRI measures. The second manipulation compared differences between repeat and switch trials for both of these measures.
Each manipulation was performed twice for each trial phase, once for the preparation phase and once for the target (response) phase of the trial. This allowed for the temporal distinction of processes associated with different stages of the trial (e.g. the distinction of processes associated with attentional allocation from those recruited in the monitoring of response conflict for the prepotency manipulation, and the distinction of anticipatory and stimulus-triggered processing for the task switching manipulation).
Further, this task design enabled comparison of processes associated with each phase of the task for the two task manipulations to determine whether similar processing stages are recruited for these two cognitive constructs. In this way, preparatory processes associated with overcoming prepotency could be compared with preparatory processes associated with task switching, and likewise, response-phase regional activity for overcoming prepotency and task switching could be compared.
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Methods and Materials |
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Seven male and seven female right-handed subjects, between the ages of 20 and 35 years, participated in the study. One male subject was excluded for excessive movement. All subjects performed a cued SR incompatibility task.
Stimuli were presented with PsyScope software on a Macintosh computer and viewed through a mirror reflecting a back-projection screen mounted inside the scanner bore. Subjects foveated a centrally located fixation point throughout the task. Figure 1 depicts the SR incompatibility task. At the beginning of a trial, a colored cue (green or red) appeared in place of the fixation for 500 ms. Seven seconds later a target stimulus (either the letter l or r) replaced the fixation cross, also for 500 ms. The inter-trial interval was fixed at 12 s. Subjects responded to the target by pressing with their index or middle finger on a glove affixed to their right hand.
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For the switching analysis, a switch trial was defined as one in which the previous trial type was different from the current one (i.e. a prepotent trial preceded by a nonprepotent trial). A repeat trial is one in which the previous and the current trial types are the same. The prepotency of the conditions was further enforced by the frequency of trial type as well as the inclusion of three prepotent trials at the beginning of each block. Seventy percent of trials were of the prepotent condition and 30% were of the nonprepotent condition. After presentation of the first three prepotent trials of each block, trials appeared in a random task order. Each subject performed four blocks of 20 trials.
For each of the analyses, a trial was broken into two phases: the preparatory phase and the response phase. Each trial lasted for 13 scans (see Image Acquisition and Analysis below). The preparatory phase lasted for the first five scans (07.5 s after trial start), during which the cue was either presented or maintained for further processing. The target phase lasted from scan 5 through scan 13 (7.519.5 s after trial start), during which the target was presented and a response was made to the target.
Image Acquisition and Analysis
Functional and structural scanning was performed in a 3.0 T GE scanner with standard head-coil. Twenty-eight 3.2 mm slices with anterior commissureposterior commissure (ACPC) in-line resolution were acquired. On each trial, thirteen 1.5 s functional scans were obtained, using a one-shot spiral T2*-weighted sequence with TR = 1500 ms, TE = 18 ms, flip angle = 70° and a field of view of 20 cm. Structural images were obtained with a standard T1-weighted pulse sequence.
Movement correction was performed using an automated algorithm (AIR) in which the first functional image volume is compared with each subsequent image volume and each image is moved closer to the original along six dimensions. A within-block linear detrend was performed with subtractive mean normalization between blocks. Each subject's structural volume was cross-registered to a reference volume using a 12-parameter automated algorithm (AIR). Volumes were then normalized for image intensity and smoothed (8 mm full width-half maximum Gaussian filter). Talairach coordinates were obtained with AFNI.
Statistical analysis was performed using voxel-wise analysis of variance (ANOVA). First, two planned contrasts were examined: prepotency-by-scan and switch-by-scan ANOVAs. Prepotency-by-scan ANOVAs included subject as a random factor and prepotency and scan as within subject factors. Switch-by-scan ANOVAs were performed with subject as a random factor and switch and scan as within subject factors. For each contrast, scans 15 (the preparatory phase) were analyzed separately from scans 513 (the response phase). Incorrect trials were discarded before the analyses were performed.
Once ROIs were identified for each manipulation, sensitivity analyses were performed to determine that regional activity associated with one of the manipulations (e.g. overcoming prepotency) did not also occur for the other manipulation (e.g. task switching). Within each ROI discovered for one of the two manipulation types (switch and prepotency), the other analysis was performed on a voxel-by-voxel basis to ensure that no voxels were active for both analyses. This analysis was performed separately for each trial phase. For example, for an ROI found in the preparatory prepotency-by-scan ANOVA, a voxel-wise preparatory switch-by-scan ANOVA was performed. Second, switch-by-scan ANOVAs were performed with prepotent-only trials (excluding nonprepotent trials). While the design and aims of the current study did not allow for a full interaction analysis between switch and prepotency, this sensitivity analyses ensured that regional activity for the switch analysis was not driven by activity on nonprepotent, switch trials.
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Results |
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On 2.45% of all trials subjects made incorrect responses and on 0.88% of trials no response was made. Error rates were between two and three percent for each condition (prepotent, nonprepotent, switch, and repeat) and the no-response trial rates did not exceed one percent for any condition. Because overall error rates were low and error rates for each condition were comparable, only correct trials were included for both the behavioral and the functional imaging analyses.
The mean reponse time (RT) for the prepotent condition (702, SD = 267) was significantly different from the mean RT for the nonprepotent condition (787, SD = 300 ms, t = 2.79, df = 12, P < 0.05). The conflict effect, a measure of the response conflict that is induced by the nonprepotent SR mapping (mean nonprepotent RTmean prepotent RT), was 86 ms.
Subjects also performed significantly worse in the switch trials as compared with the repeat trials (t = 5.00, df = 12, P < 0.0003). The mean RT for trials on which subjects switched conditions was 796 ms (SD = 310) whereas on trials in which subjects performed the same condition in the preceding trial, the mean reaction time was 681 ms (SD = 246). The switch effect, a reflection of extra processing involved in switching between conditions, was 115 ms.
For the green trial only switch analysis, RTs were similar to the overall switch RTs. Green-trial-only repeat RTs were 670 ms (SD = 240) and switch RTs were 786 (SD = 314 ms, t = 4.46, df = 12, P < 0.0008). The switch effect was 116 ms.
For the RT bin analyses, mean RTs and behavioral costs are displayed in Table 1. A 2x2 ANOVA, with subject as a random factor and RT bin and task switch as fixed factors, was performed to determine the effects of preparation on task switching. Results find that the switch cost for the fast RT bin is substantially reduced from that of the slow RT bin. It has been hypothesized that preparation for switch is all-or-none and occurs only on these fast RT trials (De Jong, 2000). The current results support this hypothesis. Fast RT trials have smaller switch costs. An interaction of RT bin and task switch (F = 33.87, df = 1, 12, P < 0.0001) reveal that task switching is greater for the slow RT bin than for the fast RT bin. Further, there were main effects of both RT bin (F = 100.78, df = 1, 12, P < 0.0001) and task switch (F = 33.61, df = 1, 12, P < 0.0001).
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Regions of interest (ROIs) were selected based on either a prepotency-by-scan or a switch-by-scan ANOVA at P < 0.005 with a clustering threshold of eight contiguous voxels in order to reduce the likelihood of type 1 error. This threshold ensured 0.05 probability protection for the full 28 slice volume, using the correction method described by Forman et al. (1995). Only ROIs showing greater activation in the prepotent or switch conditions for their respective analyses are reported. Further, only ROIs with time-series peaks within the hemodynamic range (39 s) above baseline are reported. Table 3 displays all ROIs that met these criteria for the prepotency-by-scan analyses.
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In order to dissociate control processes involved in task switching from those involved in overcoming a prepotent response tendency, a voxel-wise, switch-by-scan ANOVA was performed within each ROI found in the prepotency-by-scan ANOVA, and vice versa. This ensured that no voxels that were differentially active for the prepotent and the nonprepotent conditions were also involved in switch related processes. The precuneus activation was the only ROI with voxels significant at the P < 0.05 level in the dissociation analyses. Within this ROI, there were eight voxels that were significant for both analyses.
Activity within a region of interest (ROI) that appears in one analysis but not the other could be driven by a difference in the relative difficulty for the two conditions of each manipulation. However, a t-test of the behavioral difference between the switch effect and the conflict effect, found no detectable difference between these two measures (t = 1.14, df = 12, P > 0.27). In as far as the control process performed by a region is evidenced by these behavioral measures, we can exclude the possibility that the dissociation of regions involved in switching and overcoming prepotency is due to differential recruitment of the same process.
Three additional post-hoc analyses were performed to better determine the nature of switch-related processing and to address possible reasons for the lack of significant prefrontal cortical activity for the task switching analyses. First, a sensitivity analysis was performed. This analysis was a switch-by-scan ANOVA including prepotent trials only. All nonprepotent trials were excluded from the analysis and only current-trial-prepotent repeat trials (prepotent prepotent) and current-trial-prepotent switch trials (nonprepotent
prepotent trials) were compared. This analysis ensured that regional activity due to overcoming prepotency (activity on nonprepotent trials) did not interact with regional activity due to task switching to produce spurious or null results.
Second, switch-by-scan analyses were performed separately for high-performance and low-performance trials. According to De Jong (2000), switch-related preparation is engaged only on a proportion of trials and switch costs are the average of high-performance, prepared trials and low-performance, unprepared trials. The bin analyses were performed in order to detect switch-related processes that occur earlier or show greater activity on those trials in which participants enter a prepared state (Braver et al., 2003
). For this analysis, a three-way RT bin-by-switch-by-scan ANOVA was performed. Activity for trials with the fastest reaction times (the top decile of the reaction time distribution for switch trials and for repeat trials) was compared with activity for the slowest reaction time trials (the bottom decile of the reaction time distributions for switch and for repeat trials).
Third, in order to further examine switching mechanisms, a task switch-by-response switch-by-scan analysis was performed. This responseswitch analysis addressed the possibility that prefrontal regions may be involved in the selection of particular responses, and therefore, may show switch-related activity for particular responses rather than for task sets. This analysis was only performed for the response phase of a trial. The particular response is not known during the preparatory period and therefore, should not differentially influence processing for the two conditions.
For the green-trial-only switch analysis, only one ROI was more active in the switch than repeat condition. This ROI was active in the response phase of the task in the inferior parietal lobule (39 54 42, BA 40). This ROI overlaps with the ROI found in the all-trial switch analysis however, the center of this region is superior to that of the original parietal region.
For the bin analysis, RT bin-by-switch-by-scan analyses were performed and activity for the two trial phases was examined separately. The superior frontal gyrus (20, 6, 64; BA 6) showed a significant preparatory interaction with the greatest activity for the fast RT bin, switch condition. For the response phase, only the superior frontal gyrus showed the greatest activity for the fast RT bin, switch condition (17, 8, 60; BA 6). For the slow RT bin, switch condition, regions of precuneus (16, 69, 54; BA 7), middle frontal sulcus (51, 17, 31; BA 9), the middle occipital gyrus (24, 85, 20; BA 18/19), and the anterior frontal cortex (31, 58, 5; BA 10) showed the greatest activity.
Regions involved in switching between individual responses were also determined. For the 3 way, task switch-by-response switch-by-scan ANOVA, regions of superior frontal cortex (4 27 47; BA 8) and precuneus (16, 70, 44; BA 7), and the post-central gyrus (44, 22, 43; BA ) showed an interaction of activity for task switching and response switching.
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Discussion |
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Task cueing paradigms have proven useful in temporally isolating processes contributing to both prepotency effects (MacDonald et al., 2000) and task switching effects (Meiran et al., 2000
). The current study employed this type of task design in order to temporally separate control processes in each of these manipulations. On each trial, the preparatory phase of the task occurred after the appearance of the cue and lasted until the appearance of the target. The response phase began with the appearance of the target and lasted until the end of the trial. In this manner, preparatory processes and response-related processes were examined independently for both the prepotency and task switching manipulations.
The current study found regional activation differences related to component cognitive control processes for overcoming a prepotent response tendency and task switching. The processes recruited during performance of the nonprepotent task set reflect the need for strong top-down biasing and conflict reduction when the tendency to perform the more automatic task set must be overcome. Processes necessary for switching between tasks include changing task representations and reconfiguring SR mappings for performance of the new, now relevant task condition. The current study also revealed regions active in both manipulations, reflecting general processes recruited commonly while overcoming a prepotent response tendency and task switching.
Overcoming a Prepotent Response Tendency: Top-down Biasing and Conflict Reduction
In the current study, greater DLPFC activation occurred in preparation for the nonprepotent condition. This activity is analogous to the DLPFC activity reported by MacDonald et al. (2000) in that activity occurs for overcoming the more habitual, prepotent task set. However, this activity differed from that of the MacDonald et al. (2000)
study in two ways. First, the activation was bilateral, whereas MacDonald et al. (2000)
found unilateral left DLPFC activity. Second, the time course of this activity peaked at 34.5 s after stimulus presentation and returned toward baseline by the end of the preparatory period. MacDonald et al. (2000)
found DLPFC activity maintained throughout the preparatory period. Because DLPFC activity is not sustained throughout the inter-stimulus interval, we exclude the interpretation that this activation is simply a reflection of greater maintenance demands during performance of the nonprepotent condition. This account is consistent with other studies implicating the DLPFC in cognitive control processing other than maintenance (Bunge et al., 2002
; Dreher and Berman, 2002
; Rowe et al., 2000
).
One proposed role for the DLPFC in cognitive control is the selection of a target response (Rowe et al., 2000; Bunge et al., 2002
). Bunge et al. (2002)
suggested that a repertoire of potential SR associations is activated within posterior parietal cortex and the DLPFC selects from amongst competing responses. In the current task, DLPFC activity occurred during the preparatory phase of the task. Since the particular response was unknown during this period, the target response could not be prepared at this time. Miller and Cohen propose that the DLPFC performs top-down biasing necessary for overcoming the activation of the dominant task set. Since the dominant task set is primed by more frequent use and since the stimuli in this task set also inherently prime the responses, strong attentional biasing is necessary to activate the nonprepotent task set. Similarly, MacDonald et al. (2000)
suggest that the DLPFC is more active in preparation to overcome a prepotent response tendency, when the demands for attentional allocation are increased.
Other regions that displayed greater preparatory activation for the nonprepotent task set were the rostral cingulate, anterior frontal cortex and left inferior frontal cortex. The rostral cingulate activation may be due to the violation of stimulus expectation. The P3b event-related potential component shows amplitude variation as a function of stimulus expectancy and has been implicated in evaluation of infrequent target events in determination of behavioral relevance. In the oddball paradigm, the less frequent the target stimulus, the greater the amplitude of the P300. Studies employing fMRI and event-related potential have implicated regions of the cingulate cortex in a system involved in rare target/novel stimulus detection (Friedman et al., 2001).
Anterior frontal activation has been implicated in the monitoring of internally generated information (Christoff and Gabrieli, 2000; Christoff et al., 2001
), cognitive branching (Koechlin et al., 1999
) and subgoal activation during working memory processing (Braver and Bongiolatti, 2002
). In the nonprepotent condition, this region may be involved in integrating the contents of the subgoal with the contents of working memory in preparation for the upcoming SR reversal.
Two regions showed greater activity for the nonprepotent condition during the response phase of the trial, the left ACC and the precuneus. The ACC region shows similar activity to the ACC region found in the MacDonald et al (2000) study. The activity was implicated in response conflict detection and the current results support the role of the ACC in monitoring competing response tendencies in order to gauge the amount of control necessary for task performance (Botvinick et al., 2001
).
The response-period precuneus activity may be a reflection of greater visual attention to stimulus features during more difficult task demands. Activity in this region was also found in the task switching analyses suggesting that the precuneus performs a task general function.
Task Switching: Cognitive Flexibility
Prefrontal Cortex Activity and Task Switching
A dissociable set of regions was active for the switching analyses from those active for overcoming prepotency. No prefrontal regions were active for the a priori switch preparation analysis. A region of the right inferior frontal cortex did show target-related switch activity, however, activation was overlapping for switch and repeat trials until the last scan (scan 13) of the trial. This suggests that target and response-related switch activity increases for both switch and repeat trials.
Of particular interest was the lack of DLPFC activity for preparation to switch. In the literature, DLPFC recruitment during an endogenously cued task switch is variable, with some studies finding DLPFC activity (Sohn et al., 2000; Konishi et al., 2002
; Braver et al., 2003
) and others finding no DLPFC activity for such manipulations (Konishi et al., 1999
; Nakahara et al., 2002
). Many studies use exogenous cueing or predictable task order and therefore, do not distinguish activity due to preparation for a task switch and activity for stimulus-triggered task switching (Dove et al. 2000
; Kimberg et al., 2000
; Rogers et al. 2000
; Dreher et al., 2002
; Dreher and Grafman, 2003
).
This discrepancy of findings may be due to the recruitment of a variable set of component processes associated with task switching. For example, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), a paradigm commonly employed for set shifting manipulations, involves processes that may not be related to set shifting per se, such as feedback and trial-and-error guessing, but which are recruited during dimensional set shifting manipulations (Rogers et al., 2000; O'Reilly et al., 2002
). In order to isolate set shifting processes, Konishi et al. (1999)
had subjects perform a cued version of the WCST, which emulated task switching paradigms. They found no DLPFC activity for the set shifting manipulation.
The variability in findings in the task switching literature may also be because the umbrella terms task switching and set shifting include a variety of shift types (e.g. decision, dimensional shifts, reversal learning, visuomotor transformations). Tables 5 and 6 illustrate the variability in the literature in both the types of task switching paradigms used and in the PFC activity that is elicited during performance of these paradigms. Table 5 is organized separately by frontal and parietal coordinates to facilitate comparison of regions activated in the current study with those activated in prior task switching manipulations.
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DLPFC activity has been implicated in response selection (Bunge et al., 2000; Rowe et al., 2000) and may play a role in overcoming prepotency at the level of specific responses rather than at the level of task set. This suggests that DLPFC activity should be reflected in the switching of individual responses rather than the switching of task sets. Three pieces of evidence suggest that this is not the case. First, the current results find DLPFC activity for preparing to overcome a prepotent response tendency. The target response was unknown during this phase of the task. Second, as evidenced by the current response switch analysis, response switching does not elicit DLPFC activity. Third, Dreher and Berman (2002)
found that the DLPFC activity, which increased for overcoming residual inhibition, did not interact with motor priming. This led the authors to suggest that lateral PFC is involved with overcoming cognitive-level rather than motor-level prepotency.
Another possible reason for the lack of DLPFC activity in the task switching manipulations is that DLPFC is recruited for both switch and repeat trials, and therefore, the current manipulation is not sensitive to the difference in activity between these two trials types. Studies have suggested that associative retrieval of previous tasks utilizing the current task-stimuli may increase the switch cost for several min after performance of the previous task set (for review, see Allport and Wylie, 2000; Monsell, 2003
). Since these long-term priming effects last over several trials, they are likely affecting both the switch and repeat trials in the current study. Allport and Wylie (2000)
found that processing associated with the competing task set affected overall RTs as well as switch costs. As with these behavioral results, DLPFC activity may increase for both switch and repeat trials, and while activity may not be differentially greater for switch compared with repeat trials, such activity could be detected relative to a baseline condition of pure task performance. Because the aim of the current study was to detect activity related to task switching per se, and not dual-tasking, the current paradigm was not sensitive to such differential activity.
While dorso-lateral regions of the PFC did not show switch activity for the overall preparatory switch analyses, regions of PFC did show greater switch activity for the response phase of the overall switch analysis and the post-hoc fast and slow bin overall analyses. For the overall switch phase analysis, a region of the inferior frontal cortex (33, 28, 19; BA 44/45), the middle frontal sulcus (51, 17, 31; BA 9), and the anterior frontal cortex (31, 58, 5; BA9) were more active for task switching in the slow bin, response phase analysis. These results differ from Braver et al. (2003). They found inferior PFC activity, which peaked earlier for prepared, switch trials. However, this activity was similar in magnitude for switch and repeat trials in the slow bin analysis, which suggests that this activity may increase for dual-task conditions, and not specifically for switch trials. The current study found prefrontal activity that was superior to that found by Braver et al. (2003)
. Activity was greater for the slow bin analysis in the response period of the task, which suggests that this activity may be compensating for lack of switch preparation.
The discrepancy in results between the current and Braver et al. (2003) study's inferior frontal activation may be due to the different task demands. The Braver et al. (2003)
results required the maintenance of a verbal cue over the cue period of the task, which may have required subvocal rehearsal in both the switch and the repeat conditions. The current study however, required the maintenance and reconfiguration of SR mappings, which may result in frontal activation only during the retrieval of the SR mapping. This interpretation is consistent with the pattern of current results.
Activation of Posterior Regions for Task Switching
While no regions of the frontal cortex were more active for preparation to switch in the a priori analyses, posterior regions produced greater activity for these analyses. The precuneus region displayed greater activity for preparation to switch and this ROI overlaps with precuneus activity for the switch analysis in the response period of the task. Activity was greater during the switch than the repeat trials for both phases of the task. Likewise, this activity overlaps with an ROI found in the cue-by-scan response-related manipulation and showed greater activity during performance of the nonprepotent than the prepotent task trials.
Two points of interest may be made about the precuneus activations. First, though activation did not reach threshold in the cue-by-scan preparatory analysis, this region showed subthreshold activation in the dissociation analysis (F > 2.56, df = 1,4, P > 0.05). This suggests that subthreshold increased activity was present in preparation for the nonprepotent condition as well as in the other manipulations. Second, the time course of activity for the response-related switch and overcoming-prepotency manipulations are very similar, suggesting that this region is performing a similar process in both the switch and the nonprepotent task conditions.
These results suggest that precuneus activity increases with the attentional demands for detection of stimuli or stimulus features. Astafiev et al. (2003) found that the precuneus was more active when subjects were required to make a saccade to a region of space than when they were required to simply attend to a target location, and the activation was even greater when subjects were required to point to the target. As in the present study, the authors found that, for both the preparatory and the target-related phases of the task and activity, this pattern of activity was greater during the target-phase. Further, Astafiev et al. (2003)
found a small area within this precuneus region that was more active during attention than eye movement preparation. The authors suggest that this may be a region recruited exclusively for shifting attention. This region is near a superior posterior parietal area (Gurd et al., 2002
) implicated in the supramodal control of attentional switching, and switching attention between visual attributes (Le et al., 1998
). Although these studies suggest that the precuneus may be specific to attentional shifting, the current results and those of other studies suggest that this activity is not exclusively related to attentional shifting.
Several other studies employing SR incompatibility paradigms have also found superior parietal and precuneus activations for compatibility manipulations (Iacoboni et al., 1996; Dassonville et al., 2001
; Merriam et al., 2001
; Schumacher and D'Esposito, 2002
), many of which overlap with the regions implicated in attentional switching. These results, as well as the current finding of general precuneus activation for the task switching and incompatibility manipulations, suggest that this region is active under increased attentional demands, perhaps for the detection of stimulus features necessary for SR associations.
Rushworth et al. (2001) found several precuneus and superior parietal activations for two different switching paradigms: visual attentional set shifts (VS), in which the rule for attending to one of two stimuli switched, and visuomotor intentional set shifts (RS), in which the rules for the SR mapping switched. This activity was greater and more extensive in the RS than the VS paradigm, especially for a region that falls very close to the precuneus activity found in the current study. These results suggest that the processing demands on some regions of the precuneus may be greater during visuomotor transformations, such as in the current study, than simply for the selective attention to stimulus features.
The left inferior parietal lobule activation also showed greater switch-trial activity for the response portion of the task. This activity is consistent with posterior parietal activity in other studies for task switching (Dove et al., 2000; Kimberg et al., 2000
; Sohn et al., 2000
) as well as parietal activation that has been implicated in SR associations (Bunge et al., 2002
). These results suggest that this region reflects facilitation of SR reversals during task switching.
The inferior parietal activation found in the current task switching manipulation falls near a posterior region of the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) active for attending, looking and pointing to a target location (Astafiev et al., 2003). Regions of posterior LIP are also activated for switch manipulations (Rogers et al., 2000
; Sohn et al., 2000
; Rushworth et al., 2001
) and have been implicated in visuomotor transformations (Rushworth et al., 2001
).
The current findings support the role of the posterior parietal lobe in both the anticipatory and stimulus-triggered components of task switching. The precuneus may contribute to the anticipatory component of task switching by playing a general role in readying the cognitive system for task performance under high attentional demands, while the inferior parietal activation found during the target-phase of the task may reflect the stimulus-triggered component of task switching associated with the reconfiguration of task set.
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