Mapping task switching in frontal cortex through neuropsychological group studies

Abstract

This paper considers evidence provided by large neuropsychological group studies and meta-analyses of functional imaging experiments on the location in frontal cortex of the subprocesses involved in the carrying out of task-switching paradigms. The function of the individual subprocesses is also considered in the light of analyses of the performance of normal subjects.

Keywords: anterior attentional system; errors; focal lesions; frontal lobes; reaction time; review; switch-cost; task-switching.

Figure 1

The experimental paradigm used in Shallice et al. (2008b). It is derived from the paradigm developed by Meiran (1996).

Figure 2

The conceptual framework of the paper based on the Supervisory System framework (Shallice and Burgess, ; Stuss et al., 1995). The inner green boxes and yellow arrows represent on-line processes which (following learning) would be realised in contention scheduling. The outer blue boxes and arrows represent supervisory control processes. These include (in the early stages of learning) task rules operating as explicit if-then contingencies. The four patient groups discussed – left lateral, right lateral, superior medial and inferior medial – are held to have impairments in different supervisory processes.