Neuroimaging is being used increasingly to make inferences about an individual. Yet, those inferences are often confounded by the fact that topographical patterns of task-related brain activity can vary greatly from person to person. This study examined two factors that may contribute to the variability across individuals in a memory retrieval task: individual differences in cognitive style and individual differences in encoding strategy. Cognitive style was probed using a battery of assessments focused on the individual's tendency to visualize or verbalize written material. Encoding strategy was probed using a series of questions designed to assess typical strategies that an individual might utilize when trying to remember a list of words. Similarity in brain activity was assessed by cross-correlating individual t-statistic maps contrasting the BOLD response during retrieval to the BOLD response during fixation. Individual differences in cognitive style and encoding strategy accounted for a significant portion of the variance in similarity. This was true above and beyond individual differences in anatomy and memory performance. These results demonstrate the need for a multidimensional approach in the use of fMRI to make inferences about an individual. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.
CITATION STYLE
Miller, M. B., Donovan, C. L., Bennett, C. M., Aminoff, E. M., & Mayer, R. E. (2012, January 2). Individual differences in cognitive style and strategy predict similarities in the patterns of brain activity between individuals. NeuroImage. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.05.060
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