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 during spatial and nonspatial auditory delayed matching-to-sample and,I-back tasks to find out whether there are differences in the distribution of slow potentials during the retention of audiospatial and pitch information. The performance of both the location and pitch tasks produced slow potentials during 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 was, however, not different between the tasks. The results suggest that there is integration of auditory information processing in the neuronal networks engaged in mnemonic processing of pitch and location. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.