The effect of previous trial type on inhibition of return

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to the finding that targets appearing at previously cued locations are more slowly responded to than targets appearing at previously uncued locations when a relatively long temporal interval occurs between the cue and target. This experiment was conducted to determine whether the magnitude of IOR is influenced by the type of preceding trial (cued or uncued) and/or the location of the cue/target on the previous trial. Although no effect of cue/target location is observed, there was a marked effect of previous trial type, as IOR was greater following an uncued trial relative to a cued trial. This effect was attributable to differences in the response time as a function of previous trial type: specifically, participants were faster to respond to cued and uncued trials when the previous trial type was identical.