Activation and inhibition of posterior parietal cortex have bi-directional effects on spatial errors following interruptions

Abstract

Interruptions to ongoing mental activities are omnipresent in our modern digital world, but the brain networks involved in interrupted performance are not known, nor have the activation of those networks been modulated. Errors following interruptions reflect failures in spatial memory, whose maintenance is supported by a brain network including the right posterior parietal cortex (PPC). The present study therefore used bi-directional transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) of right PPC to examine the neuromodulation of spatial errors following interruptions, as well as performance on another PPC-dependent task, mental rotation. Anodal stimulation significantly reduced the number of interruption-based errors and increased mental rotation accuracy whereas cathodal stimulation significantly increased errors and reduced mental rotation accuracy. The results provide evidence for a causal role of the PPC in the maintenance of spatial representations during interrupted task performance.

Enhancing multiple object tracking performance with noninvasive brain stimulation: a causal role for the anterior intraparietal sulcus

“…Right AIPS stimulation improved performance in the more difficult tracking load condition where participants’ accuracy was relatively low (~70%) whereas stimulation did not affect performance in the easier tracking load condition (85–90%) where participants were performing at or close to ceiling. These results are consistent with the a priori hypotheses and are in line with the previous literature that suggests that tDCS is more beneficial to novices (Bullard et al, 2011 ) and lower performers (Tseng et al, 2012 ; Blumberg et al, 2014 ; Foroughi et al, 2015 ) and may be more effective when paired with difficult tasks (Jones and Berryhill, 2012 ; Berryhill et al, 2014 ). Additionally, cognitive training is not beneficial for individuals already performing at ceiling (Ball et al, 2007 ; Schmiedek et al, 2010 ; Jaeggi et al, 2011 ).…”

“…We anticipated that an effect of tDCS would be greatest for the high tracking load and may even be absent in the low load condition due to ceiling effects for tasks already at or near ceiling in performance (Ball et al, 2007 ; Schmiedek et al, 2010 ; Jaeggi et al, 2011 ). In addition, previous researchers have suggested that tDCS may be more beneficial for novices/lower performers than for experts/higher performers (Bullard et al, 2011 ; Tseng et al, 2012 ; Blumberg et al, 2014 ; Foroughi et al, 2015 ) and that tDCS may be more effective in difficult tasks (Berryhill et al, 2014 ), suggesting that both task difficulty and individual abilities may play a critical role in the effectiveness of stimulation.…”

Failures Due to Interruptions or Distractions: A Review and a New Framework

“…The first system postulated by their model, contention scheduling (CS), would select the highest activation, generating the action and managing interference. Thus an interruption might result in selecting inappropriate action schemata, causing errors after resumption (Foroughi et al, 2015;Reason, 1990). By contrast, willed or novel actions need greater attentional control because the action schemata are either inappropriate or absent.…”

“…This is why the resumption lag (RL) has been proposed (Trafton, Altmann, Brock, & Mintz, 2003) and corresponds to the time necessary to resume the main task after an interruption. Accuracy has been reported in many experiments but seems less sensitive to interruptions (Bailey & Konstan, 2006;Botvinick & Bylsma, 2005;Foroughi, Blumberg, & Parasuraman, 2015). However, Reason (1990) suspected that omissions might increase after inter-ruptions.…”

Working memory capacity and errors following interruptions.

“…Finally, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to reduce the number of spatial errors individuals make following interruptions by 25%, but a majority (i.e., 75%) of the errors still occurred (Foroughi, Blumberg, et al, 2015). The majority of previous research has focused on the aforementioned mitigation methods, with few efforts to examine alternative methods that may be able to mitigate the disruptiveness of interruptions.…”