The time to detect targets at inhibited and noninhibited locations: Preliminary evidence for attentional momentum.

Abstract

Inhibition of return refers to the finding that response latencies are longer for targets appearing at previously attended (cued) locations than at novel (uncued) locations. The present research was designed to examine the pattern of detection latencies that occurred for targets appearing at various uncued locations. The first 2 experiments showed that responses were fastest when the target occurred at a location directly opposite the cue. Experiment 3 showed that latencies were related to the angle between the target and the direction in which attention was being oriented. Experiments 4 and 5 showed that manipulating the direction of orientation affected inhibition of return. Overall, the results suggest that inhibition of return may be due to the difference between orienting attention to locations along the path of attention versus orienting attention to those off the path of attention. The time to detect a target appearing at a peripheral location is influenced by several factors, including the intensity of the target stimulus (e.g., Hawkins, Shafto, & Richardson, 1988) and the eccentricity of the peripheral target location (e.g., LaBerge & Brown, 1986). Another factor that has been found to have a profound influence on the time to detect a target is the manner in which attention is allocated at the time the target is presented. Posner (1980) found that response latencies to detect a peripheral target were reduced when attention was allocated to the target location just before the onset of the target. This occurred despite the fact that the observers did not move their gaze from a central fixation point and regardless of whether attention was involuntarily oriented (through the use of an abrupt-onset peripheral cue) or voluntarily oriented to a location (with a central cue indicating to which location attention should be directed). This facilitation of detection responses at attended locations has become known as attentional cuing. While examining the effects of cuing, Posner