Working memory delay period activity marks a domain-unspecific attention mechanism

Tobias Katus* (Corresponding Author), Matthias M. Müller

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Working memory (WM) recruits neural circuits that also perform perception- and action-related functions. Among the functions that are shared between the domains of WM and perception is selective attention, which supports the maintenance of task-relevant information during the retention delay of WM tasks. The tactile contralateral delay activity (tCDA) component of the event-related potential (ERP) marks the attention-based rehearsal of tactile information in somatosensory brain regions. We tested whether the tCDA reflects the competition for shared attention resources between a WM task and a perceptual task under dual-task conditions. The two tasks were always performed on opposite hands. In different blocks, the WM task had higher or lower priority than the perceptual task. The tCDA's polarity consistently reflected the hand where the currently prioritized task was performed. This suggests that the process indexed by the tCDA is not specific to the domain of WM, but mediated by a domain-unspecific attention mechanism. The analysis of transient ERP components evoked by stimuli in the two tasks further supports the interpretation that the tCDA marks a goal-directed bias in the allocation of selective attention. Larger spatially selective modulations were obtained for stimulus material related to the high-, as compared to low-priority, task. While our results generally indicate functional overlap between the domains of WM and perception, we also found evidence suggesting that selection in internal (mnemonic) and external (perceptual) stimulus representations involves processes that are not active during shifts of preparatory attention.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)149-157
Number of pages9
JournalNeuroimage
Volume128
Early online date4 Jan 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2016

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Grants KA 3843/1-1, KA 3843/1-2 and MU 972/15-1). We thank Renate Zahn for assistance with data acquisition. We furthermore thank Martin Eimer and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on the manuscript.

Keywords

  • Adult
  • Attention/physiology
  • Brain/physiology
  • Cues
  • Electroencephalography
  • Evoked Potentials/physiology
  • Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory/physiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Memory, Short-Term/physiology
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Physical Stimulation
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Touch/physiology
  • Young Adult

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