EVENT: Psychology Colloquium: A/Prof Paul Dux (UQ)

Presenter: A/Prof Paul Dux (UQ)

A/Prof Paul E. Dux is a psychologist and neuroscientist who received his PhD from Macquarie University and then undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University. He is a faculty member in the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland, where he is currently an ARC Future Fellow. Dux leads a group that studies the cognitive and neural underpinnings of human information- processing capacity limitations in health and disease. Specific interests are the mechanisms of attention and efficacy of cognitive training and how it changes the brain to improve performance. Dux has published widely, received several early career research awards and attracted funding from both the ARC and NHMRC.

Title: Neuro-Cognitive Mechanisms of Cognitive Control Training

Abstract:

The "Information Age" frequently requires us to manage multiple decisions concurrently. Despite this, humans are thought to be poor at multitasking because frontoparietal and subcortical (FP- SC) brain regions both serve a broad range of mental functions and are limited information processors. Training both improves multitasking ability and influences activity of FP - SC areas. However, 1) it is not well understood how the functional organisation of this system changes to improve multitasking performance. 2) It is controversial whether such training generalises to new tasks/cognitive operations. Here I will present large-scale fMRI and tDCS training studies that address these issues. By employing multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) and response timing modelling, I observed that training segregates tasks representations in FP- SC regions to enhance multitasking and that brain stimulation can lead to generalised training benefits by increasing the rate of evidence accumulation. Collectively, the results shed light on the neuro-cognitive mechanisms that gives rise to training effects on cognitive control.