Location cue validity affects inhibition of return of visual processing

Inhibition-of-return is the process by which visual search for an object positioned among others is biased toward novel rather than previously inspected items. It is thought to occur automatically and to increase search efficiency. We examined this phenomenon by studying the facilitative and inhibit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Vision research (Oxford) 2000-01, Vol.40 (17), p.2351-2358
Main Authors: Wright, Richard D, Richard, Christian M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis of Variance
Attention
Attention - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Cue
Facilitation
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Inhibition
Inhibition (Psychology)
Inhibition of return
Perception
Photic Stimulation
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Saccades - physiology
Space life sciences
Time Factors
Vision
Visual Perception - physiology
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Summary:Inhibition-of-return is the process by which visual search for an object positioned among others is biased toward novel rather than previously inspected items. It is thought to occur automatically and to increase search efficiency. We examined this phenomenon by studying the facilitative and inhibitory effects of location cueing on target-detection response times in a search task. The results indicated that facilitation was a reflexive consequence of cueing whereas inhibition appeared to depend on cue informativeness. More specifically, the inhibition-of-return effect occurred only when the cue provided no information about the impending target’s location. We suggest that the results are consistent with the notion of two levels of visual processing. The first involves rapid and reflexive operations that underlie the facilitative effects of location cueing on target detection. The second involves a rapid but goal-driven inhibition procedure that the perceiver can invoke if doing so will enhance visual search performance.
ISSN:0042-6989
1878-5646
DOI:10.1016/S0042-6989(00)00085-7