Examining the effect of practice on inhibition of return in static displays

Abstract

In a recent article, Weaver, Lupiáñez, and Watson (1998) reported that both object-based and location-based inhibition of return effects were reduced with practice. The present study was conducted to (1) replicate the reduction of inhibition of return with practice in single-session experiments with a variety of displays and responses and (2) to examine the notion that the reduction was, at least partly, due to habituation. However, no evidence for practice-related changes in the size of the inhibitory effect were found over a series of different inhibition of return experiments using static displays (using various numbers of target locations, types of keypress responses, and number of trials). Overall, the results suggest that inhibition of return is a robust phenomenon and may not, with static displays, be especially sensitive to practice effects. This research was supported by National Science and Engineering Council of Canada awards (0194537 and 0196162) to J.P. We thank Jeremy Wolfe, Todd Horowitz, Tram Neill, and Thomas Sanocki for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We also thank Avdeep Marwa for her assistance in the data collection.