title: Diversity of the P3 in the task-switching paradigm.
abstract: Electrophysiological studies investigating task switching usually reveal results of the parietal P3. In this study we investigated the frontal and parietal P3 after cues, targets and responses in a combined go/no-go task switch paradigm. We confirm behavioral findings showing reduction of switch costs after no-go trials. This was accompanied by a number of P3 findings: first, the cue-locked parietal P3 was increased after a switch relative to a repetition, regardless whether a go or no-go was previously required but the frontal counterpart was less positive after inhibited responses. Secondly, in the target-locked ERPs task-set switching decreased the P3 at parietal sites, while persisting inhibition from no-go in n-1 was associated with an attenuation of the frontal P3 relative to go in n-1. No impact of task set on the frontal P3 and response mode in n-1 on the parietal P3 was found, suggesting functional dissociation between task set switch and response mode in n-1. Thirdly, exactly the same pattern was observed in the response locked frontal and parietal P3. Fourthly, the task switch related parietal P3 attenuation after targets was also observed in current no-go trials, indicating task and response selection without response execution. No task switch effect on the frontal "no-go P3" was found. In sum, these results suggest that the cue-locked long-lasting P3 reflects task-set updating, whereas the post-target frontal P3 is associated with persisting response inhibition and parietal P3 is related to an after-effect of task-set activation in terms of response selection as it appears both in the target- as well as response-locked ERPs. Furthermore, the post-target parietal P3 effects are most likely due to N2 effects as a more pronounced N2 in switch trials the smaller the P3. A fronto-parietal network for an adaptive control of response requirements and task sets is proposed.
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, WHO Collaborating Research Centre Dortmund, Germany. gajewski@ifado.de
authors.forename: Patrick D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Gajewski
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Falkenstein
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003463:Cues; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004569:Electroencephalography; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult