What Neuroscientific Studies Tell Us about Inhibition of Return

Jason Satel; Nicholas R Wilson; Raymond M Klein

doi:10.3390/vision3040058

What Neuroscientific Studies Tell Us about Inhibition of Return

Vision (Basel). 2019 Oct 29;3(4):58. doi: 10.3390/vision3040058.

Authors

Jason Satel¹, Nicholas R Wilson¹, Raymond M Klein²

Affiliations

¹ Division of Psychology, School of Medicine, College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania 7250, Australia.
² Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Faculty of Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada.

Abstract

An inhibitory aftermath of orienting, inhibition of return (IOR), has intrigued scholars since its discovery about 40 years ago. Since then, the phenomenon has been subjected to a wide range of neuroscientific methods and the results of these are reviewed in this paper. These include direct manipulations of brain structures (which occur naturally in brain damage and disease or experimentally as in TMS and lesion studies) and measurements of brain activity (in humans using EEG and fMRI and in animals using single unit recording). A variety of less direct methods (e.g., computational modeling, developmental studies, etc.) have also been used. The findings from this wide range of methods support the critical role of subcortical and cortical oculomotor pathways in the generation and nature of IOR.

Keywords: inhibition of return; oculomotor system; orienting.

Publication types

Review