Schedule of Events | Symposia

Stability in self-reported task-focus relates to activation of the multiple-demand network

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Louis Chitiz¹ (17lssc@queensu.ca), Raven Wallace¹, Ian Goodall-Halliwell², Bridget Mulholland¹, Ting Xu³, Michael Milham³, Elizabeth Jefferies⁴, Robert Leech⁵, Jonathan Smallwood¹; ¹Queen's University, ²McGill University, ³Child Mind Institute, ⁴University of York, ⁵King's College London

Ongoing thought varies by person and context, but how situations impact its stability remains unclear. In our study we sought to better understand both how different dimensions of ongoing thought become more or less stable in different task situations and the neural systems that underlie those changes in stability. Participants rated their recent thoughts on 16 dimensions across 14 cognitive tasks. Using PCA, we identified 'thought patterns' comprising dimensions that covaried across tasks. To calculate thought stability we computed the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) associated with each thought pattern in each task, such that a higher ICC associated with more consistent responses between probes for that task. Using existing fMRI data for each task, we mapped tasks according to whole-brain similarity and examined their association with stability in ongoing thought. We first found that when subjects' thoughts tended to be more deliberate and task-focused, their probes became more stable. Notably, stability in deliberate task-focus associated with activation in a set of regions that significantly overlapped with the multiple-demand network - a set of areas known to activate when individuals engage in complex tasks. On the other hand, as participants' thoughts became more distracting and intrusive, their probe scores became less consistent, which significantly associated with easier tasks that activated more sensorimotor than association cortex (e.g., 0-back task). Altogether, our analysis suggested that changes in the stability of different types of thought are influenced by changing task demands and reflected in patterns of whole-brain activation.

Topic Area: THINKING: Other