Inhibition of return to successively stimulated locations in a sequential visual search paradigm.
The inhibition of return (IOR) effect refers to a slowing in response time for a target that appears at a previously attended location. Many investigators have speculated that IOR's inherent ecological validity may be to ensure an efficient search of a complex environment by creating a bias against returning to locations that have already been investigated. Unfortunately, this intriguing idea has lacked compelling empirical support. The current study addressed this issue. It was shown that in a novel visual search task, the IOR could dwell at a minimum of 3 spatially noncontiguous locations. These data suggest that IOR may serve as an important mechanism for facilitating visual search in complex environments, by inhibiting attention from returning to previously inspected locations.
Department of Neurology, University of California, Davis, USA. s.danziger@bangor.ac.uk
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Danziger
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Kingstone
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Snyder
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D004463:Ecology; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors