In this paper we reveal that the constructive interference of atomic coherence on absorption leads to electromagnetically induced absorption,which is in sharp contrast to the case in which destructive interference of atomic coherence gives rise to electromagnetically induced transparency. A four-level atomic system is employed in which three transitions are in N configuration and the middle transition is used as a probe transition. In the dressed states representation the probe transition is split into four transitions that are coupled to each other. The coupling originates from the spontaneous emission of the atomic medium and the spontaneous transfer from excited state coherence to ground state coherence. The former leads to couplings between all transitions with the same sign and to the absorption reduction. The latter results in couplings,of which t wo terms have positive sign and another two have negative sign. It is due to the couplings with positive and negative signs that significant modification of the contribution of dressed coherence to absorption occurs,i.e., absorption inhibition is changed to absorption enhancement.