title: Effects of visual working memory on brain information processing of irrelevant auditory stimuli.
abstract: Selective attention has traditionally been viewed as a sensory processing modulator that promotes cognitive processing efficiency by favoring relevant stimuli while inhibiting irrelevant stimuli. However, the cross-modal processing of irrelevant information during working memory (WM) has been rarely investigated. In this study, the modulation of irrelevant auditory information by the brain during a visual WM task was investigated. The N100 auditory evoked potential (N100-AEP) following an auditory click was used to evaluate the selective attention to auditory stimulus during WM processing and at rest. N100-AEP amplitudes were found to be significantly affected in the left-prefrontal, mid-prefrontal, right-prefrontal, left-frontal, and mid-frontal regions while performing a high WM load task. In contrast, no significant differences were found between N100-AEP amplitudes in WM states and rest states under a low WM load task in all recorded brain regions. Furthermore, no differences were found between the time latencies of N100-AEP troughs in WM states and rest states while performing either the high or low WM load task. These findings suggested that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) may integrate information from different sensory channels to protect perceptual integrity during cognitive processing.
authors.affiliation: University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, P. R. China ; State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jiagui
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, P. R. China ; University of the Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Joshua D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Rizak
authors.affiliation: Psychological Research Center, Beijing Yiran Sunny Technology Co. Lt, Beijing, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Lun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Minghong
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, P. R. China ; State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yuanye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ma
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult