Hemisphere-specific Parietal Contributions to the Interplay between Working Memory and Attention

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Anastasia Kiyonaga ◽  
John P. Powers ◽  
Yu-Chin Chiu ◽  
Tobias Egner
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Search Behavior ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Attentional Demands ◽  
Left And Right

Abstract To achieve our moment-to-moment goals, we must often keep information temporarily in mind. Yet, this working memory (WM) may compete with demands for our attention in the environment. Attentional and WM functions are thought to operate by similar underlying principles, and they often engage overlapping fronto-parietal brain regions. In a recent fMRI study, bilateral parietal cortex BOLD activity displayed an interaction between WM and visual attention dual-task demands. However, prior studies also suggest that left and right parietal cortices make unique contributions to WM and attentional functions. Moreover, behavioral performance often shows no interaction between concurrent WM and attentional demands. Thus, the scope of reciprocity between WM and attentional functions and the specific contribution that parietal cortex makes to these functions both remain unresolved. Here, we took a causal approach, targeting brain regions that are implicated in shared processing between WM and visual attention, to better characterize how those regions contribute to behavior. We first examined whether behavioral indices of WM and visual search differentially correlate with left and right parietal dual-task BOLD responses. Then, we delivered TMS over fMRI-guided left and right parietal sites during dual-task WM–visual search performance. Only right-parietal TMS influenced visual search behavior, but the stimulation either helped or harmed search depending on the current WM load. Therefore, whereas the left and right parietal contributions were distinct here, attentional and WM functions were codependent. Right parietal cortex seems to hold a privileged role in visual search behavior, consistent with prior findings, but the current results reveal that behavior may be sensitive to the interaction between visual search and WM load only when normal parietal activity is perturbed. The parietal response to heightened WM and attentional demands may therefore serve to protect against dual-task interference.

Evaluating the Spectrum of Cognitive-Motor Relationships During Dual-Task Jump Landing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Patrick D. Fischer ◽  
Keith A. Hutchison ◽  
James N. Becker ◽  
Scott M. Monfort
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Function ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Cruciate Ligament ◽  
Reaction Force ◽  
Neuromuscular Control ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Jump Landing ◽  
Peak Knee

Cognitive function plays a role in understanding noncontact anterior cruciate ligament injuries, but the research into how cognitive function influences sport-specific movements is underdeveloped. The purpose of this study was to determine how various cognitive tasks influenced dual-task jump-landing performance along with how individuals’ baseline cognitive ability mediated these relationships. Forty female recreational soccer and basketball players completed baseline cognitive function assessments and dual-task jump landings. The baseline cognitive assessments quantified individual processing speed, multitasking, attentional control, and primary memory ability. Dual-task conditions for the jump landing included unanticipated and anticipated jump performance, with and without concurrent working memory and captured visual attention tasks. Knee kinematics and kinetics were acquired through motion capture and ground reaction force data. Jumping conditions that directed visual attention away from the landing, whether anticipated or unanticipated, were associated with decreased peak knee flexion angle (P < .001). No interactions between cognitive function measures and jump-landing conditions were observed for any of the biomechanical variables, suggesting that injury-relevant cognitive-motor relationships may be specific to secondary task demands and movement requirements. This work provides insight into group- and subject-specific effects of established anticipatory and novel working memory dual-task paradigms on the neuromuscular control of a sport-specific movement.

scholarly journals Dissociable Mechanisms of Verbal Working Memory Revealed through Multivariate Lesion Mapping

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 2542-2554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Ghaleh ◽  
Elizabeth H Lacey ◽  
Mackenzie E Fama ◽  
Zainab Anbari ◽  
Andrew T DeMarco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Auditory Information ◽  
Verbal Information ◽  
Task Conditions

Abstract Two maintenance mechanisms with separate neural systems have been suggested for verbal working memory: articulatory-rehearsal and non-articulatory maintenance. Although lesion data would be key to understanding the essential neural substrates of these systems, there is little evidence from lesion studies that the two proposed mechanisms crucially rely on different neuroanatomical substrates. We examined 39 healthy adults and 71 individuals with chronic left-hemisphere stroke to determine if verbal working memory tasks with varying demands would rely on dissociable brain structures. Multivariate lesion–symptom mapping was used to identify the brain regions involved in each task, controlling for spatial working memory scores. Maintenance of verbal information relied on distinct brain regions depending on task demands: sensorimotor cortex under higher demands and superior temporal gyrus (STG) under lower demands. Inferior parietal cortex and posterior STG were involved under both low and high demands. These results suggest that maintenance of auditory information preferentially relies on auditory-phonological storage in the STG via a nonarticulatory maintenance when demands are low. Under higher demands, sensorimotor regions are crucial for the articulatory rehearsal process, which reduces the reliance on STG for maintenance. Lesions to either of these regions impair maintenance of verbal information preferentially under the appropriate task conditions.

scholarly journals Age Affects the Attentional Demands of Stair Ambulation: Evidence From a Dual-Task Approach

2009 ◽  
Vol 89 (10) ◽  
pp. 1080-1088 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi A. Ojha ◽  
Rebecca W. Kern ◽  
Chien-Ho Janice Lin ◽  
Carolee J. Winstein
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Small Sample Size ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Attentional Demands ◽  
Probe Task ◽  
Stair Ambulation

Background: Approximately 75% of all injury-producing falls on steps for people of all ages occur in people 65 years of age and older. Diminished attentional capacity contributes to fall risk in older adults, particularly when task demands are high. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the attentional demands of ascending and descending a set of stairs (stair ambulation) in older adults and younger adults. Design: This was a nonblinded, prospective, single-site, observational cohort study. Methods: Ten older (&gt;65 years of age) and 10 younger (21–33 years of age) adults without disabilities were recruited. A dual-task approach was used for 2 task conditions: the first task was standing and responding verbally to an unanticipated auditory tone as quickly as possible (probe task), and the second task was ascending or descending a set of stairs with the same probe task. A 2-factor (group × task) analysis of variance with repeated measures on task (standing and stair ambulation) was performed for voice response time (VRT). Significance for the analysis was set at P&lt;.05. Results: The group × task interaction was significant for VRT. Post hoc analyses indicated that during stair ambulation, the VRT for older adults was significantly longer than that for younger adults. For the standing task, the VRTs (X̅±SD) were similar for younger (322±65 milliseconds) and older (306±22 milliseconds) participants. For stair ascent and descent, the average VRTs were more than 100 milliseconds longer for older participants (493±113 and 470±127 milliseconds, respectively) than for younger participants (365±56 and 356±67 milliseconds, respectively). Limitations: Because of the small sample size and generally fit older group, generalization of findings to older people at risk for falls is not recommended until further research is done. Conclusions: The results demonstrated that although both older and younger adults required similar attentional resources for the standing task, older adults required significantly more resources during stair ambulation. The findings suggested that the dual-task method used here provided a clinically useful measure for detecting important changes in attentional demands in older adults who are healthy.

scholarly journals Allocation of resources in working memory: Theoretical and empirical implications for visual search

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanislas Huynh Cong ◽  
Dirk Kerzel
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Target Recognition ◽  
Limited Resource ◽  
Allocation Of Resources ◽  
The Status ◽  
Resource Hypothesis ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Empirical Implications

AbstractRecently, working memory (WM) has been conceptualized as a limited resource, distributed flexibly and strategically between an unlimited number of representations. In addition to improving the precision of representations in WM, the allocation of resources may also shape how these representations act as attentional templates to guide visual search. Here, we reviewed recent evidence in favor of this assumption and proposed three main principles that govern the relationship between WM resources and template-guided visual search. First, the allocation of resources to an attentional template has an effect on visual search, as it may improve the guidance of visual attention, facilitate target recognition, and/or protect the attentional template against interference. Second, the allocation of the largest amount of resources to a representation in WM is not sufficient to give this representation the status of attentional template and thus, the ability to guide visual search. Third, the representation obtaining the status of attentional template, whether at encoding or during maintenance, receives an amount of WM resources proportional to its relevance for visual search. Thus defined, the resource hypothesis of visual search constitutes a parsimonious and powerful framework, which provides new perspectives on previous debates and complements existing models of template-guided visual search.

Differences Between Objects and Nonobjects in Visual Extinction: A Competition for Attention

1996 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Ward ◽  
Susan Goodrich
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Visual Fields ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Attentional Selection ◽  
Selective Visual Attention ◽  
Visual Extinction ◽  
Simple Detection ◽  
Left And Right

We used visual extinction as a method for investigating the influence of objects on selective visual attention Two subjects demonstrating extinction following damage to right parietal cortex were tested in a simple detection task The task required only that subjects detect the presence or absence of any item in the left and right visual fields Both subjects showed an advantage for good objects in the impaired field However, this advantage for good objects held only in the presence of a simultaneous stimulus in the undamaged field We suggest that objects are not simply easier to detect than nonobjects, instead we argue that objects are stronger competitors for attentional selection

Effect of Template Complexity on Visual Search and Dual-Task Performance

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick A. Bourke ◽  
John Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Search Time ◽  
Concurrent Task ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Biased Competition ◽  
Task Control ◽  
Dual Task Performance

Even dissimilar tasks interfere with one another when done together. We used visual search to examine the underlying cause of such interference. In many models, visual search is a process of biased competition controlled by a template describing the target to be sought. When the display is processed, matching against this template guides attention to the target. We show that increasing template complexity increased interference with a dissimilar concurrent task, story memory. This result was independent of reaction time: Increases in template complexity were associated with no increase in search time in Experiment 1 and with a decrease in search time in Experiment 2. The results show that the dual-task demands of visual search reflect the complexity of the template used in task control, and that this factor can be isolated from other sources of difficulty.

scholarly journals Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity and Visual Search in Reading

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph S. Redden ◽  
Kaylee Eady ◽  
Raymond M Klein ◽  
Jean Saint-Aubin
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Search Efficiency ◽  
Prose Passage ◽  
Wide Range

Individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) are related to variations in a wide range of cognitive tasks. Surprisingly, effects of individual differences in working memory capacity are somewhat limited in visual search tasks. Here we tested the hypothesis that such an effect would be robust when search was one component of a dual task. Participants were presented strings of letters using rapid serial visual presentation and were required to detect all instances of a particular target letter. In Experiment 1, participants performed the letter search task in three contexts, while: a) reading a prose passage, b) processing a stream of random words, or c) processing a random stream of non-words. In the absence of the dual task of reading prose, and in line with much of the literature on individual differences in WMC and visual search, search performance was unaffected by WMC. As hypothesized, however, higher working memory capacity participants detected more target letters than lower capacity participants in the “true” dual task (searching while reading prose). The hypothesized results from the prose passage were replicated in Experiment 2. These results show that visual search efficiency is dramatically affected by WMC when searching is combined with another cognitive task but not when it is performed in isolation. Our findings are consistent with recent suggestions that visual search efficiency will be affected by WMC so long as searching is embedded in a context that entails managing resource allocation between concurrent tasks.

A Role for Spatial and Nonspatial Working Memory Processes in Visual Search

2008 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 301-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine J. Anderson ◽  
Sabira K. Mannan ◽  
Geraint Rees ◽  
Petroc Sumner ◽  
Christopher Kennard
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Retention Interval ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Memory Processes ◽  
Task Conditions

Searching a cluttered visual scene for a specific item of interest can take several seconds to perform if the target item is difficult to discriminate from surrounding items. Whether working memory processes are utilized to guide the path of attentional selection during such searches remains under debate. Previous studies have found evidence to support a role for spatial working memory in inefficient search, but the role of nonspatial working memory remains unclear. Here, we directly compared the role of spatial and nonspatial working memory for both an efficient and inefficient search task. In Experiment 1, we used a dual-task paradigm to investigate the effect of performing visual search within the retention interval of a spatial working memory task. Importantly, by incorporating two working memory loads (low and high) we were able to make comparisons between dual-task conditions, rather than between dual-task and single-task conditions. This design allows any interference effects observed to be attributed to changes in memory load, rather than to nonspecific effects related to “dual-task” performance. We found that the efficiency of the inefficient search task declined as spatial memory load increased, but that the efficient search task remained efficient. These results suggest that spatial memory plays an important role in inefficient but not efficient search. In Experiment 2, participants performed the same visual search tasks within the retention interval of visually matched spatial and verbal working memory tasks. Critically, we found comparable dual-task interference between inefficient search and both the spatial and nonspatial working memory tasks, indicating that inefficient search recruits working memory processes common to both domains.

scholarly journals Action Planning Mediates Guidance of Visual Attention from Working Memory

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Feldmann-Wüstefeld ◽  
Anna Schubö
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Irrelevant Stimulus ◽  
Memory Content ◽  
Salient Stimulus ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Visual search is impaired when a salient task-irrelevant stimulus is presented together with the target. Recent research has shown that this attentional capture effect is enhanced when the salient stimulus matches working memory (WM) content, arguing in favor of attention guidance from WM. Visual attention was also shown to be closely coupled with action planning. Preparing a movement renders action-relevant perceptual dimensions more salient and thus increases search efficiency for stimuli sharing that dimension. The present study aimed at revealing common underlying mechanisms for selective attention, WM, and action planning. Participants both prepared a specific movement (grasping or pointing) and memorized a color hue. Before the movement was executed towards an object of the memorized color, a visual search task (additional singleton) was performed. Results showed that distraction from target was more pronounced when the additional singleton had a memorized color. This WM-guided attention deployment was more pronounced when participants prepared a grasping movement. We argue that preparing a grasping movement mediates attention guidance from WM content by enhancing representations of memory content that matches the distractor shape (i.e., circles), thus encouraging attentional capture by circle distractors of the memorized color. We conclude that templates for visual search, action planning, and WM compete for resources and thus cause interferences.

Dissociating the Neural Mechanisms of Visual Attention in Change Detection Using Functional MRI

2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1006-1018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott A. Huettel ◽  
Güven Güzeldere ◽  
Gregory McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Change Blindness ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Extrastriate Cortex ◽  
Change Detection Task

We investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) the neural processes associated with performance of a change-detection task. In this task, two versions of the same picture are presented in alternation, separated by a brief mask interval. Even when the two pictures greatly differ (e.g., as when a building is in different locations), subjects report that identification of the change is difficult and often take 30 or more seconds to identify the change. This phenomenon of “change blindness” provides a powerful and novel paradigm for segregating components of visual attention using fMRI that can otherwise be confounded in short-duration tasks. By using a response-contingent event-related analysis technique, we successfully dissociated brain regions associated with different processing components of a visual change-detection task. Activation in the calcarine cortex was associated with task onset, but did not vary with the duration of visual search. In contrast, the pattern of activation in dorsal and ventral visual areas was temporally associated with the duration of visual search. As such, our results support a distinction between brain regions whose activation is modulated by attentional demands of the visual task (extrastriate cortex) and those that are not affected by it (primary visual cortex). A second network of areas including central sulcus, insular, and inferior frontal cortical areas, along with the thalamus and basal ganglia, showed phasic activation tied to the execution of responses. Finally, parietal and frontal regions showed systematic deactivations during task performance, consistent with previous reports that these regions may be associated with nontask semantic processing. We conclude that detection of change, when transient visual cues are not present, requires activation of extrastriate visual regions and frontal regions responsible for eye movements. These results suggest that studies of change blindness can inform understanding of more general attentional processing.

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