Abstract:Inhibition of return (IOR) is an inhibitory aftereffect of visuospatial orienting, typically resulting in slower responses to targets presented in an area that has been recently attended. Since its discovery, myriad research has sought to explain the causes and effects underlying this phenomenon. Here, we briefly summarize the history of the phenomenon, and describe the early work supporting the functional significance of IOR as a foraging facilitator. We then shine a light on the discordance in the literature… Show more
“…orienting, and has hence boosted research of this phenomenon. The observation of inhibition of return in the field of perception, as well as its accompanying time course going from a short period of facilitation to a longer period of inhibition, have been replicated on many occasions [2][3][4], yet the underlying mechanism remains a subject of discussion [5,6]. Some years ago, Johnson et al [7] published the article 'Foraging for thought: an inhibition-of-returnlike effect resulting from directing attention within working memory', including two experiments that showed a pattern of results similar to the phenomenon of inhibition of return but in a working memory context.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…orienting, and has hence boosted research of this phenomenon. The observation of inhibition of return in the field of perception, as well as its accompanying time course going from a short period of facilitation to a longer period of inhibition, have been replicated on many occasions [2–4], yet the underlying mechanism remains a subject of discussion [5,6]. Figure 1Schematic representations of the inhibition of return paradigm used in perception ( a ) and in verbal working memory ( b ).…”
The present study concerns a preregistered replication of the study conducted by Johnson
et al
. (Johnson
et al.
2013
Psychol. Sci.
24
, 1104–1112 (
doi:10.1177/0956797612466414
)), in which they showed an inhibition-of-return-like effect in working memory. Inhibition of return is a well-known phenomenon observed in the field of perception and refers to the observation that it takes longer to look back at a location which has recently been explored than to look at an unexplored location. Working memory is a central concept in the field of cognitive psychology and refers to the capacity to process and maintain information simultaneously over short periods of time. Johnson's study applied the inhibition of return paradigm to the concept of working memory. Their results showed that it is harder to access a working memory representation that had just been thought of, i.e. refreshed, in comparison to an unrefreshed working memory representation. Contrary to this study of Johnson
et al
., who observed refreshing to result in inhibitory processes, most studies on refreshing have described its effect as increasing/prolonging the level of activation of the memory representations. In an attempt to integrate these opposite patterns produced by ‘refreshing’, we started by replicating one of the studies on the inhibition of return in working memory reported by Johnson
et al
.
“…orienting, and has hence boosted research of this phenomenon. The observation of inhibition of return in the field of perception, as well as its accompanying time course going from a short period of facilitation to a longer period of inhibition, have been replicated on many occasions [2][3][4], yet the underlying mechanism remains a subject of discussion [5,6]. Some years ago, Johnson et al [7] published the article 'Foraging for thought: an inhibition-of-returnlike effect resulting from directing attention within working memory', including two experiments that showed a pattern of results similar to the phenomenon of inhibition of return but in a working memory context.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…orienting, and has hence boosted research of this phenomenon. The observation of inhibition of return in the field of perception, as well as its accompanying time course going from a short period of facilitation to a longer period of inhibition, have been replicated on many occasions [2–4], yet the underlying mechanism remains a subject of discussion [5,6]. Figure 1Schematic representations of the inhibition of return paradigm used in perception ( a ) and in verbal working memory ( b ).…”
The present study concerns a preregistered replication of the study conducted by Johnson
et al
. (Johnson
et al.
2013
Psychol. Sci.
24
, 1104–1112 (
doi:10.1177/0956797612466414
)), in which they showed an inhibition-of-return-like effect in working memory. Inhibition of return is a well-known phenomenon observed in the field of perception and refers to the observation that it takes longer to look back at a location which has recently been explored than to look at an unexplored location. Working memory is a central concept in the field of cognitive psychology and refers to the capacity to process and maintain information simultaneously over short periods of time. Johnson's study applied the inhibition of return paradigm to the concept of working memory. Their results showed that it is harder to access a working memory representation that had just been thought of, i.e. refreshed, in comparison to an unrefreshed working memory representation. Contrary to this study of Johnson
et al
., who observed refreshing to result in inhibitory processes, most studies on refreshing have described its effect as increasing/prolonging the level of activation of the memory representations. In an attempt to integrate these opposite patterns produced by ‘refreshing’, we started by replicating one of the studies on the inhibition of return in working memory reported by Johnson
et al
.
“…proposed the visual orienting theory of attention and introduced the cuetarget paradigm to explain the influence of different attentional orientation modes on visual processing (Posner & Cohen, 1984). Inhibition of return (IOR) as an indicator of attentional control is characterized by an inhibitory aftereffect of visuospatial orienting (Posner & Cohen, 1984;Posner et al, 1985;Redden et al, 2021). IOR is reflected in the individual's delayed responses to the target at the cued location when the cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was longer intervals (e.g., 300 ms) after a brief period of facilitation (Klein, 2000;Posner & Cohen, 1984;Posner et al, 1985).…”
In attentional orienting, researchers have proposed that reward history is a component of attentional control, as the reward value might enhance the spatial attention process to achieve more efficient goal-directed behavior and to improve target-detection performance. Although the effect of reward–induced motivation on attentional orienting has been studied in two–dimensional (2-D) space, the specific mechanisms underlying the influence of reward on inhibition of return (IOR) of attentional orienting in three-dimensional space (3-D) remain unclear. In the present study, by incorporating the Posner spatial-cueing paradigm into a virtual 3-D environment, we aimed to investigate the influence of reward on IOR in 3-D space. The results showed the following: (1) IOR size in the rewarded conditions was smaller than IOR size in the unrewarded condition in the near depth plane, resulting in an IOR difference with or without reward. (2) Reward weakened IOR in the near depth plane because the response to the uncued location was delayed, not because the response to the cued location was accelerated. The present study indicated that the different depth planes of the target location in 3-D space could influence the interaction between reward and IOR, and reward weakened IOR in the near depth plane.
“…However, additional studies are need to verify and further investigate the double cue spatial IOR effect using different experimental designs (with different SOAs or stimuli), i.e., whether the double-cue spatial IOR effect is driven by alterations (induced by “inhibitory” cues) at an early or late stage of the information processing pathway, or both [ 31 ]. In addition, the neural mechanisms underlying the double cue spatial IOR impairment remain to be elucidated [ 8 , 32 ], and longitudinal studies are required to examine whether the reduced spatial IOR effect in high-risk control individuals predicts progression to MCI or AD.…”
Spatial inhibition of return (IOR) refers to the phenomenon by which individuals are slower to respond to stimuli appearing at a previously cued location compared to un-cued locations. Here with a group of older adults (n = 56, 58–80 (67.9±5.2) year old, 31 females, 18.7±3.6 years of education), we provide evidence supporting the notion that spatial IOR is mildly impaired in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and the impairment is detectable using a double cue paradigm. Furthermore, reduced spatial IOR in high-risk healthy older individuals is associated with reduced memory and other neurocognitive task performance, suggesting that the double cue spatial IOR paradigm may be useful in detecting MCI and early AD.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
