Inhibition of return

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When attention is directed to a location, there is a brief (about 300ms) period of time when facilitation of processing at that location occurs. Following facilitation, there is a period of time (somewhere between 300ms and 3 sec) during which attention is inhibited from returning to the previously attended location. This is inhibition of return (IOR).

IOR is usually demonstrated with a cue-response paradigm, in which an experimental subject presses a button when s/he first becomes aware of a stimulus.

IOR was first described by M.I. Posner and Y. Cohen in 1984, who noticed that, contrary to their expectations, response time (RT) was longer for previously cued locations. It was subsequently shown that inhibition can also be associated with a previously attended object, and under appropriate conditions these two inhibitory effects appear to be additive.

Various evolutionary functions for IOR have been proposed - most notably, the foraging hypothesis states that the function of IOR is to make hunting for food more effective.

References & Further Reading

Posner MI & Cohen Y (1984) Components of Visual Orienting. (Chapter in Attention and Performance Vol. X, (Bouma H. and Bouwhuis D., eds) pp 531-56, Erlbaum)

Klein RM. (2000) Inhibition of return. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(4);138-47 [abstract]

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