Citation

Langley LK, Gayzur ND, Saville AL, Morlock SL, Bagne AG. Atten. Percept. Psychophys. 2011; 73(3): 766-783.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, Dept 2765, P.O. Box 6050, Fargo, ND, 58108-6050, USA, linda.langley@ndsu.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.3758/s13414-010-0059-5

PMID

21264706

PMCID

PMC3064718

Abstract

Inhibition of return (IOR) is a phenomenon of attentional orienting that is indexed by slower responses to targets presented at previously attended locations. The purpose of this study was to examine adult age differences in the distribution of IOR to multiple locations. In three experiments, young adults (ages 18-30 years) and older adults (ages 60-87 years) completed an IOR task that varied in the number of simultaneous onset cues (one to seven) and the number of display locations (four or eight). Analyses were conducted to explore whether IOR patterns were most consistent with limited inhibitory resources, with regional distribution of inhibition, or with vector averaging of cues. The IOR effects were most consistent with vector averaging, such that multiple cues initiated a directional gradient of inhibition centered on the average direction of the cues. The IOR patterns varied minimally with age, consistent with the conclusion that older adults and young adults distributed inhibition in a similar manner.

Language: en