• Y Zhao, D Tang, L Hu, L Zhang, G Hitchman, L Wang, and A Chen.
• Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, People's Republic of China.
• Neuroscience. 2014 Mar 14;262:92-106.

AbstractWorking memory (WM) tasks may increase or decrease the interference effect of concurrently performed cognitive control tasks. However, the neural oscillatory correlates of this modulation effect of WM on the Stroop task are still largely unknown. In the present study, behavioral and electroencephalographic (EEG) data were recorded from 32 healthy participants during their performance of the single Stroop task and the same task with a concurrent WM task. We observed that the Stroop interference effect represented in both response times (RTs) and theta-band event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) magnitude reduced under the dual-task condition compared with the single-task condition. The reduction of interference in theta-band ERSP was further positively correlated with interference reduction in RTs, and was mainly explained by the source in the left middle frontal gyrus. In conclusion, the present study suggests that the effect of concurrent WM tasks on the reduction of the Stroop interference effect can be indexed by EEG oscillations in theta-band rhythm in the centro-frontal regions and this modulation was mediated by the reduced cognitive control under the concurrent WM task.Copyright © 2014 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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