Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Task-order coordination in dual-task performance and the lateral prefrontal cortex: an event-related fMRI study

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Psychological Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A crucial demand in dual tasks suffering from a capacity limited processing mechanism is task-order scheduling, i.e. the control of the order in which the two component tasks are processed by this limited processing mechanism. The present study aims to test whether the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) is associated with this demand. For this, 15 participants performed a psychological refractory paradigm (PRP) type dual task in an event-related functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) experiment. In detail, two choice reaction tasks, a visual (response with right hand) and an auditory (response with left hand), were presented with a temporal offset of 200 ms, while the participants were required to respond to the tasks in the order of their presentation. Importantly, the presentation order of the tasks changed randomly. Based on previous evidence, we argue that trials in which the present task order changed as compared to the previous trial (different-order trials) impose higher demands on task coordination than same-order trials do. The analyses showed that cortical areas along the posterior part of the left inferior frontal sulcus as well as the right posterior middle frontal gyrus were more strongly activated in different-order than in same-order trials, thus supporting the conclusion that one function of the LPFC for dual-task performance is the temporal coordination of two tasks. Furthermore, it is discussed that the present findings favour the active scheduling over the passive queuing hypothesis of dual-task processing.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. According to the method of parametric manipulation the neuroanatomical correlate of a specific process can be localised by manipulating the difficulty of that process. Those brain regions, which change their activation in relation to the difficulty manipulation are assumed to be the neural substrate associated with the manipulated process (see e.g. Braver, Cohen, Nystrom, Jonides, Smith, & Noll, 1997).

  2. Some authors question the existence of a structural capacity limitation but instead suggest that participants strategically introduce partial serial processing of the tasks, e.g. because it may be faster and/or may help to avoid errors (Logan & Gordon, 2001; Meyer & Kieras, 1997). However, as soon as there is serial processing, irrespective of its structural or strategic nature, the question in which order the tasks should be processed arises. Accordingly, task-order scheduling is required under both assumptions, and the current findings apply to both of them.

  3. Additionally, one might argue that the order of the component tasks was confounded with hand order. In other words, in different-order trials, not only the order of the component tasks changed, but also the order in which the hands had to be used to give the responses. However, it seems unlikely that this confound can explain the current data. Firstly, in Experiment 3 of Luria and Meiran (2003) hand order was kept constant, and still the same behavioural differences between different-order and same-order trials were observed. Secondly, previous imaging research suggests that bimanual coordination and sequencing is mainly associated with premotor areas of the precentral gyrus, but not in the prefrontal areas observed in the current study (see e.g. Debaere, Wenderoth, Sunaert, Van Hecke, & Swinnen, 2004; Koeneke, Lutz, Wüstenberg, & Jäncke, 2004).

References

  • Beeck, H.o.d., Wagemans, J., & Vogels, R. (2001). Can neuroimaging really tell us what the human brain is doing? The relevance of indirect measures of population activity. Acta Psychologica, Amsterdam, 107(1–3), 323–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brass, M., & von Cramon, D.Y. (2004). Decomposing components of task preparation with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(4), 609–620.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Braun, J. (1998). Divided attention: Narrowing the gap between brain and behavior. In: Parasuraman, R. (ed), The attentive brain. (pp. 327–351). Cambridge, MA, US: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braver, T.S., Cohen, J.D., Nystrom, L.E., Jonides, J., Smith, E.E., & Noll, D.C. (1997). A parametric study of prefrontal cortex involvement in human working memory. Neuroimage, 5(1), 49–62.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bunge, S.A., Hazeltine, E., Scanlon, M.D., Rosen, A.C., & Gabrieli, J.D. (2002). Dissociable contributions of prefrontal and parietal cortices to response selection. Neuroimage, 17(3), 1562–1571.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bunge, S.A., Kahn, I., Wallis, J.D., Miller, E.K., & Wagner, A.D. (2003). Neural circuits subserving the retrieval and maintenance of abstract rules. Journal of Neurophysiology, 90(5), 3419–3428.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bunge, S.A., Ochsner, K.N., Desmond, J.E., Glover, G.H., & Gabrieli, J.D. (2001). Prefrontal regions involved in keeping information in and out of mind. Brain, 124(Pt 10), 2074–2086.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Burock, M.A., Buckner, R.L., Woldorff, M.G., Rosen, B.R., & Dale, A.M. (1998). Randomized event-related experimental designs allow for extremely rapid presentation rates using functional MRI. Neuroreport, 9(16), 3735–3739.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, C.R., Egan, G.F., McFarlane, A.C., Morris, P., Weber, D., Sonkkilla, C., et al. (2000). Updating working memory for words: A PET activation study. Human Brain Mapping, 9(1), 42–54.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J.D., Braver, T.S., & O’Reilly, R.C. (1996). A computational approach to prefrontal cortex, cognitive control and schizophrenia: Recent developments and current challenges. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 351(1346), 1515–1527.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Corbetta, M., & Shulman, G.L. (2002). Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3(3), 201–215.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cortina, J.M., & Folger, R.G. (1998). When is it acceptable to accept a null hypothesis: No way, Jose? Organizational Research Methods, 1(3), 334–350.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coull, J.T., & Nobre, A.C. (1998). Where and when to pay attention: The neural systems for directing attention to spatial locations and to time intervals as revealed by both PET and fMRI. The Journal of Neuroscience, 18(18), 7426–7435.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • De Jong, R. (1995). The role of preparation in overlapping-task performance. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. A, Human Experimental Psychology, 48(1), 2–25.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Debaere, F., Wenderoth, N., Sunaert, S., Van Hecke, P., & Swinnen, S.P. (2004). Cerebellar and premotor function in bimanual coordination: parametric neural responses to spatiotemporal complexity and cycling frequency. Neuroimage, 21(4), 1416–1427.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Desimone, R. (1996). Neural mechanisms for visual memory and their role in attention. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 93(24), 13494–13499.

  • D’Esposito, M., Aguirre, G.K., Zarahn, E., Ballard, D., Shin, R.K., & Lease, J. (1998). Functional MRI studies of spatial and nonspatial working memory. Brain Research. Cognitive Brain Research, 7(1), 1–13.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • D’Esposito, M., Detre, J.A., Alsop, D.C., Shin, R.K., Atlas, S., & Grossman, M. (1995). The neural basis of the central executive system of working memory. Nature, 378(6554), 279–281.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dove, A., Pollmann, S., Schubert, T., Wiggins, C.J., & von Cramon, D.Y. (2000). Prefrontal cortex activation in task switching: An event-related fMRI study. Brain Research. Cognitive Brain Research, 9(1), 103–109.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Duncan, J. (1979). Divided attention: The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Dual-task interference as an indicator of on-line programming in simple movement sequences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 5(2), 216–228.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Duncan, J. (2001). An adaptive coding model of neural function in prefrontal cortex. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2(11), 820–829.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Friston, K.J., Holmes, A.P., Worsley, K.J., Poline, J.-P., Frith, C.D., & Frackowiak, R.S.J. (1995). Statistical Parametric Maps in Functional Imaging: A General Linear Approach. Human Brain Mapping, 2, 189–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friston, K.J., Price, C.J., Fletcher, P., Moore, C., Frackowiak, R.S., & Dolan, R.J. (1996). The trouble with cognitive subtraction. Neuroimage, 4(2), 97–104.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Friston, K.J., Zarahn, E., Josephs, O., Henson, R.N., & Dale, A.M. (1999). Stochastic designs in event-related fMRI. Neuroimage, 10(5), 607–619.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fuster, J.M. (2000). Executive frontal functions. Experimental Brain Research, 133(1), 66–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, T.E., Berman, K.F., Fleming, K., Ostrem, J., Horn, J.D.V., Esposito, G., et al. (1998). Uncoupling Cognitive Workload and Prefrontal Cortical Physiology: A PET rCBF Study. Neuroimage, 7(4), 296–303.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Grafman, J. (1995). Similarities and distinctions among current models of prefrontal cortical functions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 769, 337–368.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Herath, P., Klingberg, T., Young, J., Amunts, K., & Roland, P. (2001). Neural correlates of dual task interference can be dissociated from those of divided attention: An fMRI study. Cerebral Cortex, 11(9), 796–805.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hopfinger, J.B., Buonocore, M.H., & Mangun, G.R. (2000). The neural mechanisms of top-down attentional control. Nature Neuroscience, 3(3), 284–291.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Humphreys, G.W., & Price, C.J. (2001). Cognitive neuropsychology and functional brain imaging: Implications for functional and anatomical models of cognition. Acta Psychologica, 107(1–3), 119–153.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jersild, A.T. (1927). Mental set and shift. Archives of Psychology, 14(Whole No. 89).

  • Jiang, Y., Saxe, R., & Kanwisher, N. (2004). Functional magnetic resonance imaging provides new constraints on theories of the psychological refractory period. Psychological Science, 15(6), 390–396.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Josephs, O., & Henson, R.N. (1999). Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging: Modelling, inference and optimization. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 354(1387), 1215–1228.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Josephs, O., Turner, R., & Friston, K.J. (1997). Event-Related fMRI. Human Brain Mapping, 5, 243–248.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kluger, A.N., & Tikochinsky, J. (2001). The error of accepting the “theoretical” null hypothesis: The rise, fall, and resurrection of commonsense hypotheses in psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 127(3), 408–423.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Koch, I., Metin, B., & Schuch, S. (2003). The role of temporal unpredictability for process interference and code overlap in perception-action dual tasks. Psychological Research, 67(4), 244–252.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Koch, I., Ruge, H., Brass, M., Rubin, O., Meiran, N., & Prinz, W. (2003). Equivalence of cognitive processes in brain imaging and behavioral studies: evidence from task switching. Neuroimage, 20(1), 572–577.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Koeneke, S., Lutz, K., Wüstenberg, T., & Jäncke, L. (2004). Bimanual versus unimanual coordination: what makes the difference? Neuroimage, 22(3), 1336–1350.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Konishi, S., Nakajima, K., Uchida, I., Kikyo, H., Kameyama, M., & Miyashita, Y. (1999). Common inhibitory mechanism in human inferior prefrontal cortex revealed by event-related functional MRI. Brain, 122(Pt 5), 981–991.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lien, M.C., & Ruthruff, E. (2004). Task switching in a hierarchical task structure: evidence for the fragility of the task repetition benefit. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30(3), 697–713.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Logan, G.D., & Gordon, R.D. (2001). Executive control of visual attention in dual-task situations. Psychological Review, 108(2), 393–434.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Logothetis, N.K., Pauls, J., Augath, M., Trinath, T., & Oeltermann, A. (2001). Neurophysiological investigation of the basis of the fMRI signal. Nature, 412(6843), 150–157.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lohmann, G., Müller, K., Bosch, V., Mentzel, H., Hessler, S., Chen, L., et al. (2001). Lipsia - A new software system for the evaluation of functional magnetic resonance images of the human brain. Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics, 25(6), 449–457.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Luria, R., & Meiran, N. (2003). Online order control in the psychological refractory period paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29(3), 556–574.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, D.E., & Kieras, D.E. (1997). A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple-task performance: Part 1. Basic mechanisms. Psychological Review, 104(1), 3–65.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Miezin, F.M., Maccotta, L., Ollinger, J.M., Petersen, S.E., & Buckner, R.L. (2000). Characterizing the hemodynamic response: Effects of presentation rate, sampling procedure, and the possibility of ordering brain activity based on relative timing. Neuroimage, 11(6 Pt 1), 735–759.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, E.K. (2000). The prefrontal cortex and cognitive control. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 1(1), 59–65.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, E.K., & Cohen, J.D. (2001). An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 167–202.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Norman, D.A., & Shallice, T. (1986). Attention to action: Willed and automatic control of behavior. In: Davidson, R.J., Schwartz, G.E., & Shapiro, D. (eds.), Consciousness and self-regulation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 4, pp. 1–18). New York: Plenum Press.

  • Oldfield, R.C. (1971). The assessment and analysis of handedness: The Edinburgh Inventory. Neuropsychologia, 9, 97–113.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Owen, A.M. (2000). The role of the lateral frontal cortex in mnemonic processing: The contribution of functional neuroimaging. Experimental Brain Research, 133(1), 33–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Owen, A.M., Evans, A.C., & Petrides, M. (1996). Evidence for a two-stage model of spatial working memory processing within the lateral frontal cortex: A positron emission tomography study. Cerebral Cortex, 6(1), 31–38.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pashler, H. (1994). Dual-task interference in simple tasks: Data and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 116(2), 220–244.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Petrides, M. (1996). Specialized systems for the processing of mnemonic information within the primate frontal cortex. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 351(1346), 1455–1461; discussion 1461–1452.

  • Petrides, M., Alivisatos, B., Meyer, E., & Evans, A.C. (1993). Functional activation of the human frontal cortex during the performance of verbal working memory tasks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 90(3), 878–882.

  • Rosen, B.R., Buckner, R.L., & Dale, A.M. (1998). Event-related functional MRI: Past, present, and future. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 95(3), 773–780.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowe, J.B., Toni, I., Josephs, O., Frackowiak, R.S., & Passingham, R.E. (2000). The prefrontal cortex: Response selection or maintenance within working memory? Science, 288(5471), 1656–1660.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sarter, M., Berntson, G.G., & Cacioppo, J.T. (1996). Brain imaging and cognitive neuroscience. Toward strong inference in attributing function to structure. The American Psychologist, 51(1), 13–21.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schubert, T. (1999). Processing differences between simple and choice reactions affect bottleneck localization in overlapping tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25(2), 408–425.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schubert, T., & Szameitat, A.J. (2003). Functional neuroanatomy of interference in overlapping dual tasks: an fMRI study. Brain Research. Cognitive Brain Research, 17(3), 733–746.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schubotz, R.I., Friederici, A.D., & von Cramon, D.Y. (2000). Time perception and motor timing: A common cortical and subcortical basis revealed by fMRI. Neuroimage, 11(1), 1–12.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, E.E., & Jonides, J. (1999). Storage and executive processes in the frontal lobes. Science, 283(5408), 1657–1661.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sohn, M.H., Ursu, S., Anderson, J.R., Stenger, V.A., & Carter, C.S. (2000). The role of prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex in task switching. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 97(24), 13448–13453.

  • Szameitat, A.J. (2003). The functionality of the lateral prefrontal cortex for dual-task performance [German]. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, MPI Series in Cognitive Neuroscience (32).

  • Szameitat, A.J., Schubert, T., Müller, K., & von Cramon, D.Y. (2002). Localization of executive functions in dual-task performance with fMRI. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(8), 1184–1199.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Talairach, P., & Tournoux, J. (1988). A Stereotactic Coplanar Atlas of the Human Brain. Stuttgart: Thieme.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thirion, J.P. (1998). Image matching as a diffusion process: An analogy with Maxwell’s demons. Medical Image Analysis, 2(3), 243–260.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Umiltà, C., Nicoletti, R., Simion, F., Tagliabue, M.E., & Bagnara, S. (1992). The cost of a strategy. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 4(1), 21–40.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This experiment is part of Andre Szameitat’s doctoral dissertation, which was conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, and supervised by Torsten Schubert. We thank Anke Mempel, Mandy Naumann, Anke Pitzmaus, and Kathrin Wiesner for their assistance in data acquisition, Philip Dean for proof-reading the English manuscript, and Silvia Bunge, Roy Luria, and Iring Koch for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Author information

Author notes

  1. André J. Szameitat

    Present address: Department of Psychology, School of Human Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, United Kingdom

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

    André J. Szameitat & D. Yves von Cramon

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Jöran Lepsien

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

    Annette Sterr

  4. Department of Psychology, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

    Torsten Schubert

Authors
  1. André J. Szameitat
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jöran Lepsien
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. D. Yves von Cramon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Annette Sterr
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Torsten Schubert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to André J. Szameitat.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Szameitat, A.J., Lepsien, J., Cramon, D.Y.v. et al. Task-order coordination in dual-task performance and the lateral prefrontal cortex: an event-related fMRI study. Psychological Research 70, 541–552 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-005-0015-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-005-0015-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation