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Published on: January 23, 2017
Location cue validity affects inhibition of return of visual processing
1Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, BC, V5A 1S6, Burnaby, Canada. rwright@sfu.ca
Inhibition-of-return automatically guides visual search to new items, enhancing efficiency. This effect occurs only when location cues provide no useful information about the target.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Inhibition-of-return (IOR) is a phenomenon where visual search is biased away from recently inspected locations.
- It is believed to be an automatic process that improves search efficiency by directing attention to novel stimuli.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the automatic and informative aspects of location cueing on visual search.
- To differentiate between facilitative and inhibitory effects in target detection response times.
Main Methods:
- Examined the facilitative and inhibitory effects of location cueing on response times during a visual search task.
- Analyzed target-detection response times in relation to cue informativeness and previously inspected locations.
Main Results:
- Facilitation of target detection was a reflexive response to cueing.
- The inhibition-of-return effect was observed only when location cues were uninformative regarding the target's position.
- Cue informativeness critically modulated the occurrence of inhibition.
Conclusions:
- Visual search involves at least two processing levels: rapid, reflexive facilitation and a goal-driven inhibition mechanism.
- The inhibition procedure is invoked when it can enhance visual search performance by avoiding previously searched areas.
- IOR is not purely automatic but can be modulated by the goal of efficient search.
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