The neural bases of strategy and skill in sentence-picture verification

This experiment used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to examine the r elation between individual differences in cognitive skill and the amount of cortical activation engendered by two strategies (linguistic vs. visual-sp atial) in a sentence-picture verification task. The verbal strategy produce d more activation in language-related cortical regions (e.g., Broca's area) , whereas the visual-spatial strategy produced more activation in regions t hat have been implicated in visual-spatial reasoning (e.g., parietal cortex ). These relations were also modulated by individual differences in cogniti ve skill: Individuals with better verbal skills las measured by the reading span test) had less activation in Broca's area when they used the verbal s trategy. Similarly, individuals with better visual-spatial skills las measu red by the Vandenberg, 1971, mental rotation test) had less activation in t he left parietal cortex when they used the visual-spatial strategy. These r esults indicate that language and visual-spatial processing are supported b y partially separable networks of cortical regions and suggests one basis f or strategy selection: the minimization of cognitive workload. (C) 2000 Aca demic Press.