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Share or compete? Load‐dependent recruitment of prefrontal cortex during dual‐task performance
Author(s) -
Low Kathy A.,
Leaver Echo E.,
Kramer Arthur F.,
Fabiani Monica,
Gratton Gabriele
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2009.00854.x
Subject(s) - dorsolateral prefrontal cortex , task (project management) , psychology , prefrontal cortex , working memory , cognitive psychology , neuroimaging , dual (grammatical number) , neuroscience , cognition , art , literature , management , economics
Dual‐task performance requires flexible attention allocation to two or more streams of information. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is considered important for executive function, and recent modeling work proposes that attention control may arise from selective activation and inhibition of different processing units within this region. Here, we used a tone discrimination task and a visual letter memory task to examine whether this type of competition could be measurable using a neuroimaging technique, the event‐related optical signal, with high spatial and temporal resolution. Left and right DLPFC structures were differentially affected by task priority and load, with the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) being preferentially recruited by the visual memory task, whereas the two tasks competed for recruitment, in a spatially segregated manner, in right MFG. The data provide support for a competition view of dual‐task processing.