Basic level advantage and its switching during information retrieval: An fMRI study

Abstract

Basic level advantage effect in human cognition suggested there was a more readily accessible cognitive status to the human mind than others during information retrieval, but the phenomenon of advantage effect switching to superordinate level suggested basic level would not always a sufficient way. Processing demands of tasks might explain the discrepancy between basic and superordinate precedence. In this study, we used word-picture matching task and picture-word matching task with same materials to investigate the neural systems of basic level advantage and its switching. Results showed that more activation in the area of fusiform and lingural gyrus in word-picture matching task, suggesting a visual perceptual processing loaded more in this task; while more activation in left inferior frontal gyrus in picture-word matching task, suggesting a semantic memory relied more in this task. These contrast analysis revealed different processing strategies across the two tasks which led to different advantage effect. Furthermore, the inferior parietal lobe played an important role for the advantage effect during information retrieval, with weakest deactivations appeared in the superordinate level in word-picture matching task and in the intermediate level in picture-word matching task, which might served as a control or centralized system to integrate all kinds of cognitive resources. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.