fMRI dataset of successful and unsuccessful access to complex semantic information

Our ability to effectively retrieve complex semantic knowledge meaningfully impacts our daily lives, yet the interactions between semantic control and semantic representational systems that underly successful access and transient failures in access remain only partially understood. In this fMRI study, we contrast activation during successful semantic access, unsuccessful semantic access due to transient access-failures (i.e., ‘tip-of-the-tongue’, ‘feeling-of-knowing’), and trials where the semantic knowledge was not possessed. Twenty-four participants were presented 240 trivia-based questions relating to person, place, object or scholastic knowledge-domains. Whole brain analyses of the recall event indicate comparable recruitment of prefrontal semantic control systems during successful and unsuccessful semantic access and greater activation in representational systems in successful access. Region-of-interest analysis of domain-selective areas showed that successful access was generally ...