Abstract: In order to explore the cerebral areas activated by 1/2/3-back tasks of Chinese characters and the time-course of executive control, the 64 channels event-related potentials (ERPs) of 14 normal adults were measured. N360 was elicited by 1/2/3-back tasks at prefrontal scalp. The duration of the N360 was from 250ms to 600ms after stimuli occurred. The peak-to-peak amplitude of the N360 increased with the memory load enhancement and showed load effects. High ER density current distributions and three dipoles located in the frontal lobe and other areas were found by source analysis to the N360 of 3-back tasks. Results suggest that both hemispheres involved in the executive control at different extents, but the left frontal lobe has a relative hemispherical dominance.

Key words: n-back task, executive control, load effect, event-related potentials (ERPs), dipole source localization