Operation span capacity and attentional modulation during the antisaccade task: An EEG study
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1
University of Georgia, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, United States
Performance on measures of cognitive control (e.g., working memory span tasks) predicts behavior on measures of a variety of complex cognitive operations, including reading comprehension [1], and performance on the Stroop [2] and antisaccade tasks [3,4]. Lowered performance on these measures may indicate failure to maintain a task goal, or failure in top-down control [5], however this theory has yet to be directly tested. In this study, participants completed an operation span task in which they were required to alternate between memorizing a string of letters and solving math problems. Participants scoring in the extremes (high and low span) then completed a prosaccade and antisaccade task while having their neural activity recorded with dense-array EEG. Previous work has shown that individuals with poor working memory capacity demonstrate poorer performance on the antisaccade task [3,4]. Prosaccade and antisaccade tasks require differing levels of top-down attentional control. Accurate performance on the antisaccade tasks requires ability to maintain a goal state to inhibit the prepotent response to make a saccade toward the cue and instead make a saccade to the mirror image location of that cue. Fast and efficient performance in the pro- and antisaccade tasks necessitates modulation of attentional mechanisms according to task demands. Stimuli for the saccade task consisted of 3 flickering checkerboards which oscillated at unique frequencies. Data were analyzed with complex demodulation, which yields power of oscillatory biosignals as a function of time for frequencies of interest. Measures of single trial power for neural activation to the central stimulus suggest that individuals scoring in the high operation span range exhibit good top-down control and are able to modulate their attention according to task demands (higher power to central stimulus during the antisaccade task than in the prosaccade task) while individuals scoring in the low operation span range show a failure of top-down attentional modulation to variations in task demand. This study provides a complement to previous behavioral work in that it gives a direct measure of top-down control as a function of working memory capacity.
References
1. Daneman & Carpenter. 1980. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450-466.
2. Kane & Engle. 2003. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132, 47-70.
3. Kane et al. 2001. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130,169-183.
4. Unsworth et al. 2004. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 1302-1321.
5. Sobel et al. 2007. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(5) ,840-845.
Conference:
2010 South East Nerve Net (SENN) and Georgia/South Carolina Neuroscience Consortium (GASCNC) conferences, Atlanta , United States, 5 Mar - 7 Mar, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Talks
Citation:
Ethridge
LE,
Spillers
GJ,
Unsworth
N and
Clementz
BA
(2010). Operation span capacity and attentional modulation during the antisaccade task: An EEG study.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
2010 South East Nerve Net (SENN) and Georgia/South Carolina Neuroscience Consortium (GASCNC) conferences.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.04.00006
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Received:
15 Mar 2010;
Published Online:
15 Mar 2010.
*
Correspondence:
Lauren E Ethridge, University of Georgia, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Athens, United States, lauren.ethridge@utsouthwestern.edu