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Is inhibition of return a reflexive effect?
Christine Tipper1, Alan Kingstone
1Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. tipper@interchange.ubc.ca
Cognition
|June 1, 2005
Summary
The inhibition of return (IOR) is primarily a reflexive attention effect, not solely volitional. Temporal cue reliability can attenuate IOR, but does not eliminate this fundamental reflexive response.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Visual Attention Research
Background:
- Inhibition of return (IOR) is typically viewed as a reflexive attention mechanism.
- Peripheral cues in IOR paradigms are spatially uninformative, suggesting no volitional attention commitment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if IOR is a product of volitional attention to temporal cue information.
- To determine the role of volitional control in the IOR phenomenon.
Main Methods:
- Manipulated the temporal reliability of peripheral cues.
- Assessed IOR effects when volitional use of temporal information was prevented.
Main Results:
- Rendering temporal information unreliable eliminated volitional cue use.
- The IOR phenomenon was not abolished, but was attenuated when cues were not used volitionally.
Conclusions:
- IOR is fundamentally a reflexive phenomenon, not solely a product of volitional processes.
- Volitional (top-down) processes can modulate IOR, but do not drive it.
- Fronto-parietal and superior colliculus interactions may mediate the volitional modulation of IOR.