Impact of pressure as a tactile stimulus on working memory in healthy participants.

Mahboobeh Dehghan Nayyeri,Bettina Pfleiderer,Markus Burgmer

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0213070

Mahboobeh Dehghan Nayyeri, Bettina Pfleiderer + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213070

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Abstract

Studies on cross-modal interaction have demonstrated attenuated as well as facilitated effects for both neural responses as well as behavioral performance. The goals of this pilot study were to investigate possible cross-modal interactions of tactile stimulation on visual working memory and to identify possible neuronal correlates by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During fMRI, participants (n = 12 females, n = 12 males) performed a verbal n-back task (0-back and 2-back tasks) while tactile pressure to the left thumbnail was delivered. Participants presented significantly lower behavioral performances (increased error rates, and reaction times) during the 2-back task as compared to the 0-back task. Task performance was independent of pressure in both tasks. This means that working memory performance was not impacted by a low salient tactile stimulus. Also in the fMRI data, no significant interactions of n-back x pressure were observed. In conclusion, the current study found no influence of tactile pressure on task-related brain activity during n-back (0-back and 2-back) tasks.

Highlights

The ability to maintain focus on task-relevant information in the presence of interference protects our limited cognitive resources from becoming overloaded
The analysis of the ratings showed that participants were able to distinguish 90% of the tactile stimuli to either the pressure or nonpressure condition correctly
There was no significant effect of n-back (F (1,23) = 2.772, p = 0.110, partial Eta2 = 0.108) and no significant effect of pressure (F (1,23) = 0.000, p = 0.999, partial Eta2 = 0.000) as well as no significant interaction of n-back x pressure (F (1,23) = 0.271, p = 0.608, partial Eta2 = 0.012) on the rating of tactile stimuli

Summary

Introduction

The ability to maintain focus on task-relevant information in the presence of interference protects our limited cognitive resources from becoming overloaded. Cognitive control is needed to bridge the gap between the processing of distracting sensory information and goal-directed action [1]. Tactile stimulation of the index finger can induce the perceptual suppression of visual stimuli when tactile and visual information are spatially and temporally consistent [4]. According to the perceptual load hypothesis [5] there are sufficient additional attentional resources available to fully process and identify the distractor in a low cognitive load task. In a high-load condition all resources are needed for the processing of the relevant items and no attentional resources remain to process the distractor item

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