Attentional tracking and inhibition of return in dynamic displays

Seven experiments were conducted to replicate, and extend, a finding by Tipper, Driver, and Weaver (1991). They reported evidence for dynamic, object-centered inhibition of return (IOR)—that is, coding of inhibition following a peripheral cue in coordinates that move with the previously cued object, providing a dynamic bias against reattending to that object. The present experiments used a variation of Posner and Cohen’s (1984) spatial cuing paradigm. Subjects responded manually (simple reaction time) to a luminance increment in one of two peripheral boxes, one of which had previously been cued (brightened). Experiments 1, 2, and 5 replicated the standard (environmental) IOR effect when the display was stationary. IOR was more marked for right-side targets than for left-side targets and tended to be affected by the compatibility between response hand and (cued) target position. However, when the boxes moved around the display center (Experiments 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7), contrary to Tipper et al., there was no evidence of dynamic, object-centered IOR. Rather, there was strong evidence of attentive tracking of whatever box happened to move from left to right, irrespective of the direction of its motion (clockwise or counterclockwise) and whether it was more likely to contain the target than the other (right-to-left moving) box. There was a tendency for left-to-right tracking to be more marked with right-hand responses, pointing to the existence of a dynamic stimulus-response compatibility effect. The implications of the present findings for the role of attentive tracking and IOR in dynamic scenes are discussed.