Jiang, S. orcid.org/0000-0002-9876-5145, Jones, M. orcid.org/0000-0002-4580-7559 and von Bastian, C.C. orcid.org/0000-0002-0667-2460 (2024) TDCS over PPC or DLPFC does not improve visual working memory capacity. Communications Psychology, 2 (1). 20. ISSN 2731-9121
Abstract
Non-invasive brain stimulation has been highlighted as a possible intervention to induce cognitive benefits, including on visual working memory (VWM). However, findings are inconsistent, possibly due to methodological issues. A recent high-profile study by Wang et al.1 reported that anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over posterior parietal cortex (PPC), but not over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), selectively improved VWM capacity but not precision, especially at a high VWM load. Thus, in the current pre-registered conceptual replication study, we accounted for the key potential methodological issues in the original study and tested an adequate number of participants required to demonstrate the previously reported effects (n = 48 compared to n = 20). Participants underwent counterbalanced PPC, DLPFC and sham stimulation before completing 360 trials of a continuous orientation-reproduction task with a slight variation of task stimuli and setup. We found no evidence for the selective effect of PPC stimulation. Instead, our results showed that tDCS effects were absent regardless of stimulation region and VWM load, which was largely supported by substantial to strong Bayesian evidence. Therefore, our results challenge previously reported benefits of single-session anodal PPC-tDCS on VWM.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Crown 2024. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Biological Psychology; Education; Specialist Studies In Education; Psychology; Clinical Trials and Supportive Activities; Clinical Research; Neurosciences; Eye Disease and Disorders of Vision; Evaluation of treatments and therapeutic interventions; Psychological and behavioural; Mental health |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ES/V013610/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 20 Mar 2024 11:14 |
Last Modified: | 20 Mar 2024 11:14 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s44271-024-00067-8 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:210493 |