Inhibition of Return in the Covert Deployment of Attention: Evidence from Human Electrophysiology

People are slow to react to objects that appear at recently attended locations. This delay—known as inhibition of return (IOR)—is believed to aid search of the visual environment by discouraging inspection of recently inspected objects. However, after two decades of research, there is no evidence that IOR reflects an inhibition in the covert deployment of attention. Here, observers participated in a modified visual-search task that enabled us to measure IOR and an ERP component called the posterior contralateral N2 (N2pc) that reflects the covert deployment of attention. The N2pc was smaller when a target appeared at a recently attended location than when it appeared at a recently unattended location. This reduction was due to modulation of neural processing in the visual cortex and the right parietal lobe. Importantly, there was no evidence for a delay in the N2pc. We conclude that in our task, the inhibitory processes underlying IOR reduce the probability of shifting attention to recently attended locations but do not delay the covert deployment of attention itself.

Download Full-text

Effect of parietal lobe lesions on saccade targeting and spatial memory in a naturalistic visual search task

Neuropsychologia ◽

10.1016/s0028-3932(03)00042-3 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 41 (10) ◽

pp. 1365-1386 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Steven S. Shimozaki ◽

Mary M. Hayhoe ◽

Gregory J. Zelinsky ◽

Amy Weinstein ◽

William H. Merigan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Spatial Memory ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Parietal Lobe

Download Full-text

Salience Representation in the Parietal and Frontal Cortex

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2009.21233 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 22 (5) ◽

pp. 918-930 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Alexandre Zenon ◽

Nabil Filali ◽

Jean-René Duhamel ◽

Etienne Olivier

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Reporting Rate ◽

Angular Gyrus ◽

Dual Tasks ◽

Visual Item ◽

Two Factors ◽

The Right ◽

Salience Map

Some objects in the visual field are more likely to attract attention because they are either intrinsically eye catching or relevant in the context of a particular task. These two factors, known as stimulus-driven and goal-directed factors, respectively, are thought to be integrated into a unique salience map, possibly located in the frontal or the parietal cortex. However, the distinct contribution of these two regions to salience representation is difficult to establish experimentally and remains debated. In an attempt to address this issue, we designed several dual tasks composed of a letter reporting task and a visual search task, allowing us to quantify the salience of each visual item by measuring its probability to be selected by attention. In Experiment 1, the salience of the visual search items depended on a combination of conspicuity and relevance factors, whereas in Experiment 2, stimulus-driven and goal-directed factors were tested separately. Then, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation to interfere transiently with the function of the right angular gyrus (ANG) or right FEFs in healthy subjects performing these dual tasks. We found that interfering with the ANG and the FEF function specifically altered the influence of salience on the letter report rate without affecting the overall letter reporting rate, suggesting that these areas are involved in salience representation. In particular, the present study suggests that ANG is involved in goal-directed salience representation, whereas FEF would rather house a global salience map integrating both goal-directed and stimulus-driven factors.

Download Full-text

Sit-and-Wait Strategies in Dynamic Visual Search

Psychological Science ◽

10.1111/1467-9280.14441 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 309-314 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Adrian von Mühlenen ◽

Hermann J. Müller ◽

Dagmar Müller

Keyword(s):

Experimental Data ◽

Visual Search ◽

Inhibition Of Return ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Dynamic Condition ◽

Static Condition ◽

Limited Region ◽

Rule Out

The role of memory in visual search has lately become a controversial issue. Horowitz and Wolfe (1998) observed that performance in a visual search task was little affected by whether the stimuli were static or randomly relocated every 111 ms. Because a memory-based mechanism, such as inhibition of return, would be of no use in the dynamic condition, Horowitz and Wolfe concluded that memory is likewise not involved in the static condition. However, Horowitz and Wolfe could not effectively rule out the possibility that observers adopted a different strategy in the dynamic condition than in the static condition. That is, in the dynamic condition observers may have attended to a subregion of the display and waited for the target to appear there (sit-and-wait strategy). This hypothesis is supported by experimental data showing that performance in their dynamic condition does not differ from performance in another dynamic condition in which observers are forced to adopt a sit-and-wait strategy by being presented with a limited region of the display only.

Download Full-text

Not Just Language: Persisting Lateralized Visuospatial Impairment after Left Hemisphere Stroke

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society ◽

10.1017/s1355617716000515 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 22 (7) ◽

pp. 695-704 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Krista Schendel ◽

Nina F. Dronkers ◽

And U. Turken

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Visual Attention ◽

Left Hemisphere ◽

Search Task ◽

Right Hemisphere ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Viewing Time ◽

Stroke Group ◽

The Right ◽

Left Hemisphere Stroke

AbstractObjectives: Imbalances in spatial attention are most often associated with right hemisphere brain injury. This report assessed 25 chronic left hemisphere stroke patients for attentional bias. Methods: Participants were evaluated with a computerized visual search task and a standardized neuropsychological assessment known as the Behavioral Inattention Test (BITC). Twenty age-matched controls were also tested. Results: Although little to no attentional impairment was observed on the BITC, the computerized visual search task revealed statistically significant contralesional attentional impairment in the left hemisphere stroke group. Specifically, these participants required 208 ms more viewing time, on average, to reliably detect visual targets on the right side of the display compared to detection on the left side, while controls showed a difference of only 8 ms between the two sides. Conclusions: The observation of significant leftward visuospatial bias in this chronic stroke group provides further evidence that the left hemisphere also plays a role in the balance of visual attention across space. These results have implications for left hemisphere patients who are often not screened for visuospatial problems, as well as for theories of visual attention which have primarily emphasized the role of the right hemisphere. (JINS, 2016, 22, 695–704)

Download Full-text

Parietal Lobe Lesions Disrupt Saccadic Remapping of Inhibitory Location Tagging

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/089892904323057245 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. 503-509 ◽

Cited By ~ 69

Author(s):

Ayelet Sapir ◽

Amy Hayes ◽

Avishai Henik ◽

Shai Danziger ◽

Robert Rafal

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Reference Frame ◽

Inhibition Of Return ◽

Parietal Lobe ◽

Visual Environment ◽

Eye Position ◽

Intraparietal Sulcus ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Neural Substrate ◽

Saccadic Remapping

Maintaining a coherent percept of the visual scene while eye position continuously changes requires that saccades be accompanied by remapping of the visual environment. We studied saccadic remapping in patients with unilateral lesions in the intraparietal sulcus and healthy controls, using inhibition of return (IOR)—an inhibitory tag that enables efficient visual search. In healthy controls, IOR was found at both retinal and environmental locations of the cue, indicating that the inhibitory tag had been remapped into environmental coordinates. In contrast, right parietal patients demonstrated IOR only at the retinal location of the cue, indicating that the intraparietal sulcus is involved in remapping of the environment after eye movements to afford a stable, environmentally based reference frame. Note that patients did not show environmental IOR in either visual field. These results also suggest that this region may be the neural substrate for encoding inhibitory spatial tags in an environmentally based reference frame.

Download Full-text