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Inhibition of return for faces.
Tracy L Taylor1, Megan E Therrien
1Department of Psychology, Life Sciences Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4JI, Canada. ttaylor2@dal.ca
Perception & Psychophysics
|March 25, 2006
Summary
Inhibition of return (IOR) is a visual attention phenomenon. This study found that IOR is unaffected by whether stimuli are faces or non-faces, suggesting it is a "blind" mechanism.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Visual Attention
Background:
- Inhibition of return (IOR) describes slower reaction times to stimuli appearing in previously attended locations.
- The role of stimulus configuration, particularly biologically relevant stimuli like faces, in modulating IOR is not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether the configuration of visual stimuli (faces vs. non-faces) influences the magnitude of Inhibition of Return.
- To determine if IOR is sensitive to the biological relevance of cue and target stimuli.
Main Methods:
- An orienting paradigm was employed to elicit IOR.
- Stimuli included intact faces, scrambled faces, and pixilated non-face stimuli, used as cues, targets, or both.
- Reaction times were measured to assess IOR magnitude.
Main Results:
- The magnitude of IOR was not affected when face and scrambled-face stimuli were used as cues.
- Similarly, IOR magnitude remained unchanged when these stimuli were presented as targets.
- The inclusion of non-face stimuli in cue-target trials also did not alter IOR.
Conclusions:
- Inhibition of return appears to be a stimulus-configuration-blind mechanism.
- The mere presence of biologically relevant stimuli, such as faces, does not modulate IOR.
- These findings support the view of IOR as a fundamental, low-level attentional process.