Alexis Noel and David Hu describe the unusual properties of a cat's tongue.
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Edited by Michael I. Posner, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, and approved September 9, 2015 (received for review June 11, 2015)
Significance
The problem of how the brain undertakes multiple tasks concurrently is one of the oldest in psychology and neuroscience. Although successful negotiation of the rich sensory world clearly requires the ongoing management of multiple tasks, humans show substantial multitasking impairments in the laboratory and everyday life. Fortunately, training facilitates multitasking. However, until now, the neural mechanisms driving this functional adaptation were not understood. Here, in a large-scale human brain imaging study, we apply an individual differences approach and pattern analysis of brain imaging data to reveal that training segregates individual task representations in the capacity limited processor that constitutes the frontoparietal–subcortical (FP-SC) network. Therefore, the brain separates the neural representations of constituent tasks to conquer multitasking.
Abstract
Negotiating the information-rich sensory world often requires the concurrent management of multiple tasks. Despite this requirement, humans are thought to be poor at multitasking because of the processing limitations of frontoparietal and subcortical (FP-SC) brain regions. Although training is known to improve multitasking performance, it is unknown how the FP-SC system functionally changes to support improved multitasking. To address this question, we characterized the FP-SC changes that predict training outcomes using an individual differences approach. Participants (n = 100) performed single and multiple tasks in pre- and posttraining magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sessions interspersed by either a multitasking or an active-control training regimen. Multivoxel pattern analyses (MVPA) revealed that training induced multitasking improvements were predicted by divergence in the FP-SC blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response patterns to the trained tasks. Importantly, this finding was only observed for participants who completed training on the component (single) tasks and their combination (multitask) and not for the control group. Therefore, the FP-SC system supports multitasking behavior by segregating constituent task representations.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: getkellygarner{at}gmail.com or paul.e.dux{at}gmail.com.
Author contributions: K.G.G. and P.E.D. designed research; K.G.G. performed research; K.G.G. and P.E.D. analyzed data; and K.G.G. and P.E.D. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Data deposition: The data reported in this paper has been deposited in UQ eSpace, espace.library.uq.edu.au (ID code 370251).
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1511423112/-/DCSupplemental.
Training divides task representations
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