Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Think differently: a brain orienting response to task novelty.

Francisco Barceló1, José A Periáñez, Robert T Knight

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca. f.barcelo@uib.es

Neuroreport
|October 24, 2002
PubMed
Summary

Cognitive flexibility involves shifting attention and mental sets. This study found that the P3a brain response is involved in task-set shifting during complex cognitive tasks.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Physical activity enhances theta-periodicity of visual attentional allocation.

iScience·2026
Same author

Opposing effects of slow and fast theta synchrony on working memory in the human hippocampal-orbitofrontal network.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026
Same author

Spectral mapping reveals a resemblance of the anesthetic brain state to both sleep and coma.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

Temporal kinetics of brain state effects on visual perception.

Scientific reports·2026
Same author

A communication subspace relays context-dependent actions from human prefrontal to motor cortex.

Nature neuroscience·2026
Same author

Cortical-limbic circuit dynamics of approach-avoidance conflict in humans.

Nature communications·2026

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

  • Cognitive flexibility allows adapting to new situations and problem-solving.
  • The P3a event-related potential (ERP) is linked to orienting to novel stimuli.
  • Previous research primarily associated P3a with bottom-up processing, not top-down attention control in dual-task settings.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the role of the P3a ERP response in task-set shifting within a dual-task paradigm.
  • To explore the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive flexibility and executive control.

Main Methods:

  • Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 27 subjects.
  • Participants performed a version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), a dual-task paradigm.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Feedback cues signaled unpredictable shifts between task sets (e.g., sorting by color vs. shape).

    • Main Results:

    • Feedback cues triggering mental set shifts elicited frontally distributed P3a activity.
    • A later positive potential (P3b) was observed, correlating with the number of task rules held in memory.
    • These findings suggest P3a is involved in task-set shifting.

    Conclusions:

    • The P3a response system plays a role in task-set shifting, demonstrating its involvement in top-down attention control.
    • The P3a/P3b system reflects coordinated prefrontal and posterior cortical activity during task switching and working memory updates.
    • This supports models of executive attention and prefrontal cortex function.