Spatial Stroop and spatial orienting: the role of onset versus offset cues

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The present study investigated whether offset cues have the same attentional consequences in the spatial Stroop effect as onset cues. Experiments 1 and 2 compared the attentional effects of onset-offset cues versus offset cues on the spatial Stroop effect, whereas Experiment 3 compared the attentional effects of onset versus offset cues. Across these experiments, independent of cue type (onset-offset or onset vs. offset) and even at long stimulus-onset asynchrony, attentional cueing did not revert into inhibition of return and was modulated by spatial Stroop with greater cueing effects for incongruent arrow's direction and position. In addition, onset-offset or onset and offset cues produced comparable cueing effects in the location-direction congruent condition, and onset-offset or onset cues produced greater facilitation than offset cues in the incongruent condition. From a different perspective, peripheral cueing modulated the spatial Stroop effect in the same direction for onset-offset or onset and offset cues, although the reduction in spatial Stroop at cued locations was smaller with offset than with onset-offset or onset cues.