Trial reportNeuroImage2014
The neural mechanisms underlying internally and externally guided task selection.
Trial report in NeuroImage, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The role of cue transparency in task switching: an SDM-PSI meta-analysis in healthy adults.Brain imaging and behavior · 2026Pooled it
- Aging-related changes in cognitive flexibility: fMRI meta-analysis.Behavioral and brain functions : BBF · 2025Pooled it
- Mapping common and distinct brain correlates among cognitive flexibility tasks: concordant evidence from meta-analyses.Brain imaging and behavior · 2025Pooled it
- Functional localization and categorization of intentional decisions in humans: A meta-analysis of brain imaging studies.NeuroImage · 2021Pooled it
- Patients with schizophrenia show aberrant patterns of basal ganglia activation: Evidence from ALE meta-analysis.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2017Pooled it
- The role of the striatum in effort-based decision-making in the absence of reward.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2014Trial
- Neural Oscillatory Markers of Voluntary Task Switching: Proactive Engagement of Self-Directed Control in Children and Adults.Developmental science · 2025Article
- The benefit of choice on task performance: Reduced difficulty effects in free-choice versus forced-choice tasks.Memory & cognition · 2025Article
- Reactive and proactive control processes in voluntary task choice.Memory & cognition · 2024Article
- Research progress on the intervention of cognitive function using transcranial alternating current stimulation technology.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Enhancing free choice masked primingFrontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Widespread theta coherence during spatial cognitive control.Neuropsychologia · 2021Article
- Neurocognitive Effects of Self-Determined Choice and Emotional Arousal on Time Estimation.Advances in cognitive psychology · 2021Article
- Striatal-frontal network activation during voluntary task selection under conditions of monetary reward.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2019Article
- How the Brain Converts Negative Evaluation into Performance Facilitation.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2018Article
- Neuroanatomical Correlates of the Unity and Diversity Model of Executive Function in Young Adults.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2018Article
- Understanding and Visualizing Multitasking and Task Switching Activities: A Time Motion Study to Capture Nursing Workflow.AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings. AMIA Symposium · 2016Article
- Article
- Free Language Selection in the Bilingual Brain: An Event-Related fMRI Study.Scientific reports · 2015Article
- Resting-state networks predict individual differences in common and specific aspects of executive function.NeuroImage · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
While some prior work suggests that medial prefrontal cortex (MFC) regions mediate freely chosen actions, other work suggests that the lateral frontal pole (LFP) is responsible for control of abstract, internal goals. The present study uses fMRI to determine whether the voluntary selection of a task in pursuit of an overall goal relies on MFC regions or the LFP. To do so, we used a modified voluntary task switching (VTS) paradigm, in which participants choose an individual task to perform on each trial (i.e., a subgoal), under instructions to perform the tasks equally often and in a random order (i.e. the overall goal). In conjunction, we examined patterns of activation in the face of irrelevant, but task-related external stimuli that might nonetheless influence task selection. While there was some evidence that the MFC was involved in voluntary task selection, we found that the LFP and anterior insula (AI) were crucial to task selection in the pursuit of an overall goal. In addition, activation of the LFP and AI increased in the face of environmental stimuli that might serve as an interfering or conflicting external bias on voluntary task choice. These findings suggest that the LFP supports task selection according to abstract, internal goals, and leaves open the possibility that MFC may guide action selection in situations lacking in such top-down biases. As such, the current study represents a critical step towards understanding the neural underpinnings of how tasks are selected voluntarily to enable an overarching goal.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.