title: Inhibition of return, but not facilitation, disappears under vigilance decrease due to sleep deprivation.
abstract: In this study, we assessed whether unspecific attention processes signaled by general reaction times (RTs), as well as specific facilitatory (validity or facilitation effect) and inhibitory (inhibition of return, IOR) effects involved in the attentional orienting network, are affected by low vigilance due to both circadian factors and sleep deprivation (SD). Eighteen male participants performed a cuing task in which peripheral cues were nonpredictive about the target location and the cue-target interval varied at three levels: 200 ms, 800 ms, and 1,100 ms. Facilitation with the shortest and IOR with the longest cue-target intervals were observed in the baseline session, thus replicating previous related studies. Under SD condition, RTs were generally slower, indicating a reduction in the participants' arousal level. The inclusion of a phasic alerting tone in several trials partially compensated for the reduction in tonic alertness, but not with the longest cue-target interval. With regard to orienting, whereas the facilitation effect due to reflexive shifts of attention was preserved with sleep loss, the IOR was not observed. These results suggest that the decrease of vigilance produced by SD affects both the compensatory effects of phasic alerting and the endogenous component involved in disengaging attention from the cued location, a requisite for the IOR effect being observed.
authors.affiliation: Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, <location>Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain</location>
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Martella
authors.affiliation: Dipartmento di Psicologia, "Sapienza" Università di Roma, <location>Italy</location>
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marotta
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psicología Básica y Metodología, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Murcia, <location>Spain</location>
authors.forename: Luis J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Fuentes
authors.affiliation: Dipartmento di Psicologia, "Sapienza" Università di Roma, <location>Italy</location>
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Casagrande
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention; D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012932:Social Facilitation; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: facilitation; inhibition of return; phasic alertness; sleep deprivation; tonic alertness