[The effects of a recency task on the left and right hand tapping performance]

The intrahemispheric overflow hypothesis was examined by the cognitive-motor interference method. Subjects were 12 right handed male adults. As the concurrent cognitive task the present study employed Milner's recent-memory (verbal and nonverbal) task which was assumed by the author to be related to the frontal lobe function. The motor task was a single finger repetitive tapping, which control is thought to involve the motor area in the anterior regions of the hemispheres. In verbal material, general interference occurred during both encoding and decoding periods. In nonverbal material, however, recency task interfered with the left hand during decoding period only when the load effect was maximum. The result indicated that even if there were no functional overlap, interference could occur by neural overflow.