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The neural effect of stimulus-response modality compatibility on dual-task performance: an fMRI study

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Abstract

Recent fMRI studies suggest that the inferior frontal sulcus (IFS) is involved in the coordination of interfering processes in dual-task situations. The present study aims to further specify this assumption by investigating whether the compatibility between stimulus and response modalities modulates dual-task-related activity along the IFS. It has been shown behaviorally that the degree of interference, as measured by dual-task costs, increases in modality-incompatible conditions (e.g. visual–vocal tasks combined with auditory–manual tasks) as compared to modality-compatible conditions (e.g. visual–manual tasks combined with auditory–vocal tasks). Using fMRI, we measured IFS activity when participants performed modality-compatible and modality-incompatible single and dual tasks. Behaviorally, we replicated the finding of higher dual-task costs for modality-incompatible tasks compared to modality-compatible tasks. The fMRI data revealed higher activity along the IFS in modality-incompatible dual tasks compared with modality-compatible dual tasks when inter-individual variability in functional brain organization is taken into account. We argue that in addition to temporal order coordination (Szameitat et al., 2002), the IFS is involved in the coordination of cognitive processes associated with the concurrent mapping of sensory information onto corresponding motor responses in dual-task situations.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant of the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to T.S. and by a grant of the DAAD (Deutsches Akademisches Auslandsamt) to C.S. In addition, the work was further supported by the NIH, grants MH63901 and NS40813. The authors wish to thank Annabelle Singer and Ben Inglis for their help in data acquisition and Leon Deouell, Felice Sun, Lee Miller, and Christian Kaufmann for help with the data analysis. In addition, we are grateful to Eric Ruthruff, Roman Liepelt, Iring Koch, and one anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on previous versions of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Humboldt University Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489, Berlin, Germany

    Christine Stelzel & Torsten Schubert

  2. School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA

    Eric H. Schumacher

  3. Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Mark D‘Esposito

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  1. Christine Stelzel
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Correspondence to Christine Stelzel.

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Stelzel, C., Schumacher, E.H., Schubert, T. et al. The neural effect of stimulus-response modality compatibility on dual-task performance: an fMRI study. Psychological Research 70, 514–525 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-005-0013-7

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