The effect of scene removal on inhibition of return in a cue-target task

Inhibition of return (IOR) is thought to be a phenomenon that biases orienting toward novel stimuli and/or facilitates foraging search. Although IOR has been explored using both the spatial cueing paradigm and the search paradigm, there is significant disagreement among scholars over whether these paradigms are reflecting the same underlying mechanism. We sought to address this disagreement by exploring whether a manipulation known to impact IOR in search - maintenance versus removal of the scene - might have a similar impact in the spatial cuing paradigm. As has been observed in both the cuing and search paradigms, we obtained a robust gradient of IOR around the cued location. Importantly, as in search tasks, scene removal resulted in the abolishment of IOR. This similarity lends support to the view that the spatial cuing and search paradigms are exploring the same IOR phenomenon.