Modulation of slow brain potentials by working memory load in spatial and nonspatial auditory tasks

Slow event-related brain potentials were recorded from the human scalp duri ng spatial and nonspatial auditory delayed matching-to-sample and,I-back ta sks to find out whether there are differences in the distribution of slow p otentials during the retention of audiospatial and pitch information. The p erformance of both the location and pitch tasks produced slow potentials du ring the delay phase of the memory tasks. The delay-related slow potential was modulated by the amount of information to be processed during the tasks at the parietal-occipital sites. The distribution of mnemonic modulation w as, however, not different between the tasks. The results suggest that ther e is integration of auditory information processing in the neuronal network s engaged in mnemonic processing of pitch and location. (C) 2000 Elsevier S cience Ltd. All rights reserved.