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The Journal of Neuroscience, March 25, 2009, 29(12):3930-3938; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5737-08.2009

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
A Domain-Independent Source of Cognitive Control for Task Sets: Shifting Spatial Attention and Switching Categorization Rules

Yu-Chin Chiu and Steven Yantis

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218

Correspondence should be addressed to Yu-Chin Chiu, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218. Email: yuchin{at}jhu.edu

To optimize task performance as circumstances unfold, cognitive control mechanisms configure the brain to prepare for upcoming events through voluntary shifts in task set. A foundational unanswered question concerns whether different domains of cognitive control (e.g., spatial attention shifts, shifts between categorization rules, or shifts between stimulus–response mapping rules) are associated with separate, domain-specific control mechanisms, or whether a common, domain-independent source of control initiates shifts in all domains. Previous studies have tested different domains of cognitive control in separate groups of subjects using different paradigms, yielding equivocal conclusions. Here, using rapid event-related MRI, we report evidence from a single paradigm in which subjects were cued to perform both shifts of spatial attention and switches between categorization rules. A conjunction analysis revealed a common transient signal evoked by switch cues in medial superior parietal lobule for both domains of control, revealing a single domain-independent control mechanism.

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Received Dec. 2, 2008; revised Feb. 16, 2009; accepted Feb. 23, 2009.

Correspondence should be addressed to Yu-Chin Chiu, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218. Email: yuchin{at}jhu.edu

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Esterman, Y.-C. Chiu, B. J. Tamber-Rosenau, and S. Yantis Decoding cognitive control in human parietal cortex PNAS, October 20, 2009; 106(42): 17974 - 17979. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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