Does the construction retrieval account apply to cross-modal inhibition of return in semantic context?

The traditional attentional reorienting hypothesis is insufficient to explain spatial and nonspatial inhibition of return (IOR). Therefore, a construction retrieval account that includes the influence of top-down attentional sets has been proposed and can explain both spatial and nonspatial IOR. However, it remains unknown whether the construction retrieval account can be applied to non-surface features of stimuli, as well as whether its construction and retrieval mechanisms are supra-modal. The present study manipulated semantic feature congruency and spatial location congruency between the prime and the target in cross-modal audio-visual and visual-audio experimental conditions, respectively, by orthogonally combining spatial and nonspatial IOR paradigms. Our results showed that there was an interaction between semantic feature congruency and spatial location congruency controlled by the attentional sets, and that this interaction was consistent in cross-modal audio-visual and visual-audio conditions. These results suggest that the construction retrieval account can be applied to abstract semantic features and that its construction and retrieval mechanisms are supra-modal. The present study extends the application scope of the construction retrieval account and promotes the interpretation of IOR under a unified theoretical framework.