Regional cerebral activity associated with the incidental processing of pseudo‐words

Abstract In order to study brain activity associated with “incidental” cognitive processing, regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured in six volunteers while they monitored a sequence of pseudo‐words (e.g., FLOPE) for the rare occasions when the letters were displayed in blue rather than white. In the control condition, the same pseudo‐word was presented repeatedly. In one experimental condition all 60 pseudo‐words were different, while in the other there were 18 repetitions. Although it was not necessary to “read” the pseudo‐words to perform the monitoring task, subsequent forced choice recognition memory for these stimuli was significantly greater than chance. Furthermore, there were significant differences in blood flow between the three conditions. When different pseudo‐words were presented there was significantly greater activity in brain areas concerned with shape and object identity (extrastriate cortex bilaterally), with visual word form (left inferior temporal gyrus), and with articulatory word form (Broca's area) even though none of this information about the pseudo‐words was needed for performance of the monitoring task. In the condition in which some of the words were repeated, there was significantly reduced activity in the right lingual gyrus. This area may therefore be a possible anatomical locus for repetition priming with verbal stimuli. These results indicate the importance of taking into account incidental processing when designing tasks for functional imaging experiments. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.