Talk:Inhibition of return

Review by Ward:

The article needs to begin with a simple definition of IOR and then proceed to an introductory discussion of IOR in the context of the saliency model and the winner-take-all algorithm. Something like: "Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to the relative suppression of processing of a perceptual object that occurs at a spatial location where attention was recently focused. It is supposed to be a complementary process to selective attention, in which particular perceptual objects are selected from among the plethora of sensory inputs to which we are continually exposed........" Also the literary style of the first part of the first paragraph is not needed for an encyclopedia article. Better to start with explicating the phenomenon as succinctly as possible and then move on to the details. The rest of the article is fine I think - most of the recent important results are highlighted as well as the historical foundations covered. I did fix a few typos and change some wordings - pace Jason and Ray.

Reviewer B:

This is an excellent paper. It makes quite a good in presenting, in very well organized way, most relevant current knowledge about IOR. However, there are a few aspect that in my opinion should receive a better treatment. One of them is crucial to me. The paper maintain the idea that IOR is the result of the Inhibition of the Return of attention to previously explored locations. The IOR effect is put in the context of a Visual Search task, where the searcher has a goal in mind, and therefore the orienting of attention and the movement of the eyes are somehow voluntary (although also driven by saliency of features matching the target template). As a result, I think the paper give two impressions, which I am not sure Klein and Ivanoff will agree with: 1.- Exogenous and endogenous orienting are two ways of orienting the attentional mechanism that is oriented on Visual Search. 2.- IOR is a direct consequence of disengaging attention from one location.

As shown by several investigators (including Bob Rafal, the second author in the paper that gave name to the IOR effect)IOR can be observed at the location where attention is oriented to, or even at the location that is being fixated (Berlucchi, Chelazzi, & Tassinari, 2000; Lupiáñez, et al., 2004; Rafal, Davies, & Lauder, 2006)

On the other hand, Klein is well known in the field for having convincingly shown that exogenous and endogenous attention might be a two different, at least partially independent, attentional systems, rather than "two ways of transporting" the attentional system. Therefore, in my opinion, a better job should be done in tackling this inconsistency.

Perhaps a way to do so might be in the section "The chronometry of IOR". When it is admitted that "neuroscientific evidence (see Klein, 2004, for a discussion) suggests that IOR begins with the cue"... it should be distinguished between IOR as an effect and the mechanims which underlie this effect. Note that if IOR is considered the inhibition of the return of attention, it cannot start with the cue, i.e., when first attending to the cue. The way the authors tackle this issue is not satisfactory because, again, they assume that once attention is disengaged from the cued location IOR appears. So, by saying that "IOR is overshadowed in a cuing task by facilitation", and that IOR appears then earlier when "attention is encouraged to disengage rapidly from a cue" (Danziger & Kingstone, 1999), it is again assumed that it is orienting of attention that produces the facilitation that mask IOR. Note, however, that in their second experiment of Danziger & Kingstone (1999) with a discrimination task, once attention has been disengaged it is facilitation rather then IOR that is unmasked.

In my opinion, authors should describe here that the behaviorally measured IOR effect might be the result of several mechanism, perhaps only one being responsible of the increase in RT in responding to previously cued locations. Then, some arguments mightbbe given about what this mechanism might be, perhaps what I have called a "detection cost" or lost of novelty (Lupiáñez, Ruz, Funes, & Milliken, 2007), or "habituation" (a la Dukewich). Importantly, this will allow to explain why IOR can be observed at the location where attention is oriented to, or why at the same time, depending on the task at hand, either Facilitation or IOR can be observed at a previously cued location (Lupiáñez et al., 2007). Another consequence of this distinction is that it will allow to present the mechanisms responsible for IOR, as one of the mechanisms that operate in biasing search. Other might be facilitatory instead (like priming of the objects sharing features with the target template, etc).

Berlucchi, G., Chelazzi, L., & Tassinari, G. (2000). Volitional covert orienting to a peripheral cue does not suppress cue-induced inhibition of return. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(4), 648-663. Lupiáñez, J., Decaix, C., Sieroff, E., Chokron, S., Milliken, B., & Bartolomeo, P. (2004). Independent effects of endogenous and exogenous spatial cueing: inhibition of return at endogenously attended target locations. Exp Brain Res, 159(4), 447-457. Lupiáñez, J., Ruz, M., Funes, M. J., & Milliken, B. (2007). The manifestation of attentional capture: facilitation or IOR depending on task demands. Psychol Res, 71(1), 77-91. Rafal, R., Davies, J., & Lauder, J. (2006). Inhibitory tagging at subsequently fixated locations: Generation of "inhibition of return" without saccade inhibition. Visual Cognition, 13(3), 308-323.

Reviewer B:

In my opinion, there are several parts of the article in which some reference to the task dependency of the IOR effect should be incorporated. Of course, I am biased here, but not only because I have worked a lot with this issue, but because having done so I have learn that many assumptions (at least some) we make about what it is IOR are disproved when we extend the paradigm from simple detection to discrimination tasks. Two important findings here: - The well known fact that the time course of facilitation-IOR heavily depend on the task at hand. - The less known fact that this time-course dependency is not due to attention being disengaged earlier or later from the cued location, because the same time course dependency is observed when the timing of orienting is controlled directly, by manipulating orienting of attention independently of peripheral cueing (Berger, Henik, & Rafal, 2005; Chica, Lupiáñez, & Bartolomeo, 2006).

Again, task dependency is rather better explained by assuming that different processes triggered by the peripheral cue (facilitatory / inhibitory) are mainly tapped by one and the other task. This way it can be explained that being everything equal until the target appears either facilitation or IOR can be observed dependent with the type of target (and therefore the task) from which it is measured RT (Lupiáñez, Ruz, Funes, & Milliken, 2007).

Berger, A., Henik, A., & Rafal, R. (2005). Competition between endogenous and exogenous orienting of visual attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology-General, 134(2), 207-221. Chica, A. B., Lupiáñez, J., & Bartolomeo, P. (2006). Dissociating inhibition of return from endogenous orienting of spatial attention: Evidence from detection and discrimination tasks. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 23(7), 1015-1034. Lupiáñez, J., Ruz, M., Funes, M. J., & Milliken, B. (2007). The manifestation of attentional capture: facilitation or IOR depending on task demands. Psychol Res, 71(1), 77-91.

Author Klein :

Dear Editor, Lawrence and Juan,

Thanks for the minor corrections and other suggestions for improving our entry on IOR. In this brief note we summarizes how we have responded.

1) Reviewer A (Ward) - suggested that we begin with a more typical statement of the definition of inhibition of return and that perhaps the style of the opening paragraph might be altered. We have followed the first suggestion including a 3-sentence precis of the article that begins with a succinct definition and then covers the key points. We left the next (former first) paragraph more or less as was because we like the way it establishes the functional significance of IOR

2) Reviewer B (Lupianez) - Made a variety of suggestions related to the ideas that an object or location can suffer from IOR while being attended and that response time is dependent on the net effects of positive and negative influences of a variety of factors. We have modified the article in several ways to respond to these suggestions, but because this is an encyclopedia entry we have conscientiously avoided raising issues that in our view are either too complex or as yet undecided. a) Most importantly, when we introduce the name "inhibition of return" and point out that this name implies a theoretical mechanism, we now also mention the source of this naming and acknowledge that there are challenges to this interpretation of IOR's underlying mechanism: "This latter effect of the cue has been called inhibition of return (IOR), a name for the phenomenon first used by Posner, Rafal, Choate & Vaughan, 1985) that also suggests a theoretical mechanism: After attention has been removed from a location, it is inhibited from returning to that location. Despite some challenges to this description of the mechanism of IOR, the IOR effect is robust and the novelty-seeking function described here is well-established." b) As suggested by Lupianez, in the section on the Chronometry of IOR we have added material which points to the evidence that attention and IOR can co-exist and which acknowledges, en passant, that there are many effects that may simultaneously act to increase and decrease RT. We point to the habituation account of the mechanisms of the IOR effect. We do not develop the implications of the potentially interesting result from Lupianez et al (2007, Exp. 3) because there are complex issues here and doing so will require too much space for an encyclopedia article.

We would greatly appreciate it if the editor and reviewers would give our newly added sentences the careful attention that was received by the previous version of the article.

Raymond Klein & Jason Ivanoff