Attentional interference between tasks performed in parallel is known to have strong and often undesired effects. As yet, however, the mechanisms by which interference operates remain elusive. A better knowledge of these processes may facilitate our understanding of the effects of attention on human performance and the debilitating consequences that disruptions to attention can have. According to the load theory of cognitive control, processing of task-irrelevant stimuli is increased by attending in parallel to a relevant task with high cognitive demands. This is due to the relevant task engaging cognitive control resources that are, hence, unavailable to inhibit the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli. However, it has also been demonstrated that a variety of types of load (perceptual and emotional) can result in a reduction of the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli, suggesting a uniform effect of increased load irrespective of the type of load. In the present study, we concurrently presented a relevant auditory matching task [ n -back working memory (WM)] of low or high cognitive load (1-back or 2-back WM) and task-irrelevant images at one of three object visibility levels (0%, 50%, or 100%). fMRI activation during the processing of the task-irrelevant visual stimuli was measured in the lateral occipital cortex and found to be reduced under high, compared to low, WM load. In combination with previous findings, this result is suggestive of a more generalized load theory, whereby cognitive load, as well as other types of load (e.g., perceptual), can result in a reduction of the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli, in line with a uniform effect of increased load irrespective of the type of load.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were investigated to find precursors of insightful behavior. Participants had to process successive pairs in strings of digits to obtain a final response in each trial. Within the sequence of five responses required in each trial, the last two responses mirrored the two preceding ones. This hidden regularity, allowing for shortcutting each trial from five to two responses, was discovered by 6 out of 26 participants. Both groups, solvers and nonsolvers, implicitly learned the regularity, reflected by faster responses to the repeated, predictable responses, but this differential effect was larger in solvers, whereas nonsolvers became unspecifically faster with all responses. Several ERP components were larger in solvers than in nonsolvers from the outset: slow positive wave, frontocentral P3a, anterior N1 to those digits that triggered the critical repeating responses, and P3b to the digit that evoked the immediately repeating response. Being already present in the first block, these effects were early precursors of insightful behavior. This early occurrence suggests that participants who will gain insight may be distinguished beforehand by their individual characteristics.

The detection of unexpected events is a fundamental process of learning. Theories of cognitive control and previous imaging results indicate a prominent role of the prefrontal cortex in the evaluation of the congruency between expected and actual outcome. In most cases, this attributed function is based on results where the person is consciously aware of the discrepancy. In this functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) study, we examined violations of predicted outcomes that did not enter conscious awareness. Two groups were trained with nearly identical material and the effects of new stimuli were assessed after learning. For the first group, the material was arranged with a hidden regularity. In this incidental learning situation, volunteers acquired implicit knowledge about structural response regularities as was demonstrated by an increase in reaction time when introducing new stimuli that violated the learned relations. To differentiate the detection process of stimuli that deviate from learned expectations from more un-specific effects generated by novel, unfamiliar stimuli, the second group was trained with rearranged material without a hidden regularity. No behavioral effects were found for the introduction of new stimuli in the group without implicit learning. Comparing the two groups, specific fMRI effects concerning the violation of implicitly learned expectations were found in the ventral prefrontal cortex and in the medial-temporal lobe. In accord with theories of learning, the results show a direct influence of the detection of prediction errors on the neuronal activity in learning related structures even in the absence of conscious knowledge about the predictions or their violations.