Using functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to Evaluate the Neurocognitive Effects of Transient Events

Abstract

A spatial memory task with an event related design was used as a proxy for showcasing a design matrix regression on fNIRS data for neuroergonomic studies of complex tasks involving transient workload transitions. The analysis identified a region of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) in which oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO2) was increased during memory maintenance. Task performance negatively modulated HbO2 in this brain region during memory maintenance. The results show that neural effects specifically within the period of memory maintenance, as opposed to other cognitive components (e.g., encoding or retrieval) can be reliably identified. Similar analytical methods could be used for the analysis of cortical hemodynamics in more complex tasks involving transient events (e.g., workload transitions) and in related neuroergonomic applications.

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