Cognitive Control Involved in Overcoming Prepotent Response Tendencies and Switching Between Tasks

Abstract

A dissociable set of regions was active for the executive processing associated with overcoming a prepotent response tendency and task switching. Regions associated with overcoming prepotency were primarily frontal and may be part of a system involved in top-down biasing for conflict reduction. Posterior regions were recruited for switching between tasks and likely play a role in reconfiguring stimulus-response mappings. Precuneus activity was common to both manipulations and may reflect increased visual attention due to more difficult task demands.

Prefrontal Cortical Mechanisms Underlying Individual Differences in Cognitive Flexibility and Stability

“…A large body of neurocognitive research suggests that a neural network consisting of prefrontal and parietal regions underlies cognitive control (Champod & Petrides, 2007;Derrfuss, Brass, & von Cramon, 2004;Curtis & DʼEsposito, 2003;Wager & Smith, 2003;Collette & Van der Linden, 2002;Miller & Cohen, 2001;Collette et al, 1999;DʼEsposito et al, 1995). However, whether cognitive flexibility and cognitive stability depend upon separate neural systems or share a common neural network is still a matter of debate (Hedden & Gabrieli, 2010;Robbins, 2007;Barber & Carter, 2005;Aron, Monsell, Sahakian, & Robbins, 2004;Aron, Robbins, & Poldrack, 2004). …”

Early Error Detection Predicted by Reduced Pre-response Control Process: An ERP Topographic Mapping Study

“…Within this influential model, the dACC signals the DLPFC of an ongoing response conflict, which in turn increases attentional resources (Ridderinkhof, Ullsperger, Crone, & Nieuwenhuis, 2004;Orr & Weissman, 2009). This dACC-DLPFC system has been implicated in tasks that require overcoming a prepotent response tendency (MacDonald, Cohen, Stenger, & Carter, 2000;Barber & Carter, 2005). Interestingly, Bunge et al (2002) suggested that the DLPFC activation may not reflect working-memory load per se (Cohen et al, 1997;Levy & Goldman-Rakic, 1999), but rather, a selection process between competing responses (see also Rowe, Toni, Josephs, Frackowiak, & Passingham, 2000); or alternatively an attempt to overcome residual inhibition (see Dreher & Berman, 2002), while a repertoire of potential S-R associations would be "pre-activated" within posterior parietal cortex presumably at an earlier stage of processing, including regions of the precuneus (Barber & Carter, 2005).…”

“…This dACC-DLPFC system has been implicated in tasks that require overcoming a prepotent response tendency (MacDonald, Cohen, Stenger, & Carter, 2000;Barber & Carter, 2005). Interestingly, Bunge et al (2002) suggested that the DLPFC activation may not reflect working-memory load per se (Cohen et al, 1997;Levy & Goldman-Rakic, 1999), but rather, a selection process between competing responses (see also Rowe, Toni, Josephs, Frackowiak, & Passingham, 2000); or alternatively an attempt to overcome residual inhibition (see Dreher & Berman, 2002), while a repertoire of potential S-R associations would be "pre-activated" within posterior parietal cortex presumably at an earlier stage of processing, including regions of the precuneus (Barber & Carter, 2005). Within this model, the posterior parietal cortex would be activated during the anticipatory period of the task to increase (or maybe to switch) attentional resources towards the relevant stimulus features necessary for upholding S-R associations (Rushworth, Paus, & Sipila, 2001;Bunge, Hazeltine, Scanlon, Rosen, & Gabrieli, 2002;Astafiev et al, 2003;Barber & Carter, 2005;Rushworth & Taylor, 2006).…”

“…Interestingly, Bunge et al (2002) suggested that the DLPFC activation may not reflect working-memory load per se (Cohen et al, 1997;Levy & Goldman-Rakic, 1999), but rather, a selection process between competing responses (see also Rowe, Toni, Josephs, Frackowiak, & Passingham, 2000); or alternatively an attempt to overcome residual inhibition (see Dreher & Berman, 2002), while a repertoire of potential S-R associations would be "pre-activated" within posterior parietal cortex presumably at an earlier stage of processing, including regions of the precuneus (Barber & Carter, 2005). Within this model, the posterior parietal cortex would be activated during the anticipatory period of the task to increase (or maybe to switch) attentional resources towards the relevant stimulus features necessary for upholding S-R associations (Rushworth, Paus, & Sipila, 2001;Bunge, Hazeltine, Scanlon, Rosen, & Gabrieli, 2002;Astafiev et al, 2003;Barber & Carter, 2005;Rushworth & Taylor, 2006). Consistent with this view, Barber and Carter (2005) used fMRI and elegantly demonstrated that the precuneus showed a sustained activation during the anticipatory period of the task, when participants were instructed to overcome a prepotent response tendency (i.e., to use a less frequent and reversed S-R mapping compared to a more intuitive and standard S-R mapping), confirming that posterior parietal regions played a general role in top-down biasing processing resources under increased attentional demands (see also Desimone & Duncan, 1995;Kastner & Ungerleider, 2000;Corbetta & Shulman, 2002;Lavie, 2005;Li et al, 2007).…”

Social stimuli interfere with cognitive control in autism

“…Cognitive control may be conceptualized as the allocation of top-down resources for taskrelevant processes, and includes both behavioral control and performance monitoring components. Cognitive control is recruited under novel or complex conditions to optimize goaldirected behavior (Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001;MacDonald, Cohen, Stenger, & Carter, 2000;Barber & Carter, 2005). Although the constructs of "cognitive control" and "executive function" are not synonymous, these terms have been used interchangeably to describe maintenance of goal representations, updating goals, top-down guidance of information-processing, and performance monitoring.…”