Placeholders dissociate two forms of inhibition of return

Abstract

Decades of research using Posner's classic spatial cueing paradigm has uncovered at least two forms of inhibition of return (IOR) in the aftermath of an exogenous, peripheral orienting cue. One prominent dissociation concerns the role of covert and overt orienting in generating IOR effects that relate to perception- and action-oriented processes, respectively. Another prominent dissociation concerns the role of covert and overt orienting in generating IOR effects that depend on object- and space-based representation, respectively. Our objective was to evaluate whether these dichotomies are functionally equivalent by manipulating placeholder object presence in the cueing paradigm. By discouraging eye movements throughout, Experiments 1A and 1B validated a perception-oriented form of IOR that depended critically on placeholders. Experiment 2A demonstrated that IOR was robust without placeholders when eye movements went to the cue and back to fixation before the manual response target. In Experiment 2B, we replicated Experiment 2A's procedures except we discouraged eye movements. IOR was observed, albeit only weakly and significantly diminished relative to when eye movements were involved. We conclude that action-oriented IOR is robust against placeholders but that the magnitude of perception-oriented IOR is critically sensitive to placeholder presence when unwanted oculomotor activity can be ruled out.

Feature integration in basic detection and localization tasks: Insights from the attentional orienting literature

“…In any event, in the present context, without considering eye movements, we remain agnostic about whether the observed same-location costs are related to inhibition of return (orienting) or to some other mechanism related to target detection costs (selection). However, when the oculomotor system responsible for rapid eye movements is involved (Klein & Hilchey, 2011), we maintain that there are clear orienting biases against previously attended locations (e.g., Bichot & Schall, 2002;Hilchey et al, 2016;Hilchey et al, 2014;Hilchey, Pratt, & Christie, 2018;Hilchey, Rajsic, et al, 2018;Posner et al, 1985;Pratt & Abrams, 1999;Taylor & Klein, 2000).…”

“…However, we acknowledge that this effect can become linked to landmarks in the environment and that inhibited reorienting, as a construct, may be unnecessary in such circumstances. We believe this partly because objectbased inhibition-of-return effects tend to be more robust in covert than in overt attention tasks (e.g., Hilchey, Pratt, & Christie, 2018), making it difficult to determine directly whether orienting is inhibited. At least part of the reason for slower responses with target location repetitions than with switches may be due to effects on target selection, independent of orienting, as suggested by the detection cost theory of IOR (Lupiáñez, 2010;Lupiáñez et al, 2013).…”

“…Such findings are not confined to the partialrepetition-costs paradigms. Rather, feature integration effects seem to occur in many tasks that require stimulus discrimination on the basis of color or form (Hilchey, Pratt, & Christie, 2018;Hilchey et al, 2017aHilchey et al, , 2017bHommel, 1998;Hommel & Colzato, 2004;Notebaert & Soetens, 2003;Rajsic et al, 2014;Taylor & Donnelly, 2002) and have become foundational evidence supporting feature integration across perception and action.…”

“…Generally speaking, the concept behind inhibition of return is that a constellation of mechanisms bias attentional orienting against previously attended locations or objects, (Klein, 2000;Klein & Redden, in press). These mechanisms can bias attentional orienting by reducing the salience or priority of previously attended objects or inputs, or by making people more reluctant to respond to previously attended locations, depending on the involvement of the oculomotor system (Grison, Kessler, Paul, Jordan, & Tipper, 2004;Hilchey, Klein, & Satel, 2014;Hilchey, Pratt, & Christie, 2018;Satel, Hilchey, Wang, Story, & Klein, 2013;Taylor & Klein, 2000). Regardless of whether the slower responses for target location repeats relative to switches are due to degradation in the quality of the input signal (e.g., Smith, Ball, & Ellison, 2012) or to a reluctance to respond in the direction of the prior target location (e.g., Hilchey, Dohmen, Crowder, & Klein, 2016), the repetition of the target's form and/or color should not modify the effect.…”

“…Two of the major questions in our quest to understand how humans interact with their visual environments are: (1) When are visual features combined and represented in memory in order to alter our behavior to later instances of them (Bfeature integration effects^; Hommel, Proctor, & Vu, 2004)?, and (2) When is attention biased against or in favor of specific features/regions in the visual field (Borienting effects^; Hilchey, Pratt, & Christie, 2018)? These questions are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and on occasion the paradigms addressing them intersect (cf.…”