2.6 Data and statistical analysis

Reaction time (RT) was defined as the interval between the onset of visual stimulus and the button press. Responses faster than 150 ms or slower than the mean + 3SD and those with choice errors were excluded from the analysis (Hultsch et al., 2002; Berger and Kiefer, 2021). Consequently, 4.41 and 4.17% of data were excluded for SRT and CRT tasks, respectively, in Experiment 1, and 4.23 and 4.54% of data for SRT and CRT tasks, respectively, in Experiment 2. We evaluated the mean RT, SD of RT, and accuracy. The data at Post 0 and Post 15 were normalized to that at Pre. Normality of data were checked using Shapiro–Wilk test, and the data with non-normal distributions were log transformed [log(x + 1)]. Two-way repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to examine the effect of tSMS over the MAC on the task performance, with Stimulation (Sham, Unilateral, and Bilateral) and Time (Pre, Post 0, and Post 15) as factors. Bonferroni’s correction for multiple comparisons was used for post hoc analysis. We used the Fisher’s exact test to assess whether participants were blinded to stimulation conditions. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA) and R (R Development Core Team).