Right hemisphere occipital rTMS impairs working memory in visualizers but not in verbalizers

Hilbert, Sven and McAssey, Michaela and Buehner, Markus and Schwaferts, Patrick and Gruber, Monika and Goerigk, Stephan and Taylor, Paul Christopher John (2019) Right hemisphere occipital rTMS impairs working memory in visualizers but not in verbalizers. SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, 9: 6307. ISSN 2045-2322,

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Abstract

Distinguishing between verbal and visual working memory processes is complicated by the fact that the strategy used is hard to control or even assess. Many stimuli used in working memory tasks can be processed via verbal or visual coding, such as the digits in the digit span backwards task (DSB). The present study used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to examine the use of visual processing strategies in the DSB. A total of 47 German university students took part in the study, 23 spontaneously using a verbal processing strategy and 24 using a visual strategy. After rTMS to the right occipital cortex, visualizers showed a significantly stronger mean performance decrease compared to verbalizers. The results indicate that the visual cortex is more critical for visualizers compared to verbalizers in the DSB task. Furthermore, the favored processing modality seems to be determined by the preference for a cognitive strategy rather than the presentation modality, and people are aware of the applied strategy. These findings provide insight into inter-individual differences in working memory processing and yield important implications for laboratory studies as well as clinical practice: the stimulus does not necessarily determine the processing and the participant can be aware of that.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION; SHORT-TERM-MEMORY; THETA-BURST STIMULATION; BRAIN-STIMULATION; COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE; LOW-FREQUENCY; TMS-EEG; CORTEX; BACKWARD; PARIETAL;
Subjects: 100 Philosophy & psychology > 150 Psychology
Divisions: Human Sciences > Institut für Bildungswissenschaft > Professur für Methoden der empirischen Bildungsforschung - Prof. Dr. Sven Hilbert
Depositing User: Dr. Gernot Deinzer
Date Deposited: 15 Apr 2020 06:54
Last Modified: 15 Apr 2020 06:54
URI: https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/27154

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