Interference from the irrelevant domain in n-back tasks: an ERP study.

Selective attention and interference from the irrelevant domain are frequently neglected factors in working memory experiments. Here identical stimuli were employed in n-back tasks under spatial and verbal task instructions to test whether information in the irrelevant domain was really irrelevant. The results reveal interference from the irrelevant domain in the replacement sub-process of the n-back task, and highlight the importance of taking cross-domain interference into account when drawing conclusions from neuropsychological experiments.