Creating external reminders for delayed intentions: Dissociable influence on “task-positive” and “task-negative” brain networks

Abstract

Studies of prospective memory and other paradigms requiring participants to remember delayed intentions typically reveal a distinction between lateral and medial rostral prefrontal cortex, whereby the experimental condition yields increased signal in the former region and decreased signal in the latter. These regions comprise nodes of larger "task-positive" and "task-negative" networks that often show opposite patterns of signal change in response to diverse cognitive demands. However, it is not clear to what extent activity in these networks is A) inverse but equivalent, or B) functionally dissociable. In order to address this question, participants performed an "intention-offloading" task while undergoing fMRI. On each trial they remembered a delayed intention, which they had the opportunity to fulfill after a brief filled delay. In one condition they were required to set an external reminder of this intention, while in the other they acted without any external memory aid. Results indicated a clear functional dissociation between the two networks. Compared with a control task with no delayed intention, there was a highly significant reduction in task-negative deactivation when participants used an external memory aid. However, there was no reduction in task-positive activation. These results are consistent with previous evidence that medial rostral prefrontal cortex plays a prominent role in representing the content of delayed intentions, accompanied by a reduction in BOLD signal and potentially increased theta-band oscillatory activity. This role is no longer required once an external reminder has been created. By contrast, lateral rostral prefrontal cortex may play a content-free role, unaffected by the offloading of content into the external environment.

Superior parietal cortex and the attention to delayed intention: An rTMS study

“…Several other works found consistent activations of the frontoparietal regions (e.g., Barban et al, 2014;Beck et al, 2014;Landsiedel & Gilbert, 2015). The AtoDI account is also supported by the findings of recent PM studies, which proposed that strategic monitoringconsisting of top-down attentional and memory processesare supported mainly by dorsal frontoparietal regions (Beck et al, 2014;Gonneaud et al, 2014).…”

Storing information in-the-world: Metacognition and cognitive offloading in a short-term memory task

“…Investigating the decision to offload in a memory task requires creating conditions that provide participants with the option to use either internal or external forms of storage and investigating the factors that influence the use of each (Cary & Carlson, 2001;Gilbert, 2015a,b;Gray & Boehm-Davis, 2000;Gray et al, 2006;Landsiedel & Gilbert, 2015;Siegler & Lemaire, 1997;Schönpflug, 1986;Walsh & Anderson, 2009). In the present investigation we adapted a traditional short-term memory task (i.e., forward span; Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway, 1999) by giving participants (in Experiments 1a and 1b) the freedom to write down the to-be-remembered information.…”

“…Indeed, our ability to adaptively integrate internal with external processes likely represents a defining feature of what it means to be a successful cognitive agent in a complex environment. Understanding how the cognitive system goes about integrating internal with external processes in pursuit of a cognitive goal is attracting renewed interest (Chisholm, Risko, & Kingstone, 2013Dunn & Risko, in press;Eskritt, Lee, & Donald, 2001;Eskritt & Ma, 2014;Fu, 2011;Gilbert, 2015a,b;Kirsh, 2010;Landsiedel & Gilbert, 2015;Risko, Medimorec, Chisholm, & Kingstone, 2014;Sparrow, Liu, & Wegner, 2011;Storm & Stone, 2015) with the increasing popularity of perspectives emphasizing the central role of the body and physical/social environment in cognition (e.g., embodied/embedded cognition; e.g., Glenberg, 2010; distributed cognition; e.g., Michaelian & Sutton, 2013). In considering the interaction between internal and external processes, researchers often describe the latter as being used to ''lighten the load'' on the former, a phenomenon referred to as cognitive offloading (e.g., Gilbert, 2015a,b;Goldin-Meadow, Nusbaum, Kelly, & Wagner, 2001;Landsiedel & Gilbert, 2015;Martin & Schwartz, 2005;Risko et al, 2014;Storm & Stone, 2015;Wilson, 2002).…”

Neural representation of current and intended task sets during sequential judgements on human faces

“…In addition, we observed a set of task-negative regions such as mPFC, middle cingulate, 624 OFC, IFG and temporal cortex which showed reduced signal when participants needed to 625 hold an intended task set. Similarly, Landsiedel & Gilbert (2015) carried out an intention-626 offloading paradigm where participants had to remember a delayed intention, which they 627 had to fulfil after a brief filled delay. During the maintenance of such intention they found 628 a set of deactivated regions including mPFC, posterior cingulate cortex, infero-temporal 629 cortex, and temporo-parietal cortex.…”

“…This reduction suggests that these task-negative 632 areas play a role in the representation of the delayed tasks. Pure blocks in our tasks are 633 similar to the offloading condition in Landsiedel & Gilbert (2015), as participants needed 634 to sustain only the initial task set to perform the correct social categorization. Therefore, 635 taking these results into account, it seems unlikely that task-negative regions reflect 636 simply a "default mode" (Fox et al, 2005), but rather that this deactivation is, to some 637 extent, playing a functional role during task performance (Spreng, 2012).…”