The eccentricity effect of inhibition of return is resistant to practice

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to a delayed responding to targets appeared at previously cued location relative to an uncued novel location. In a recent study, Bao and Poppet I 1 I reported a functional dissociation of inhibitory processing in the visual field with much stronger IOR magnitude in the far periphery relative to the perifoveal visual field up to 15 degrees eccentricity. The present study aimed to examine whether this effect is sensitive to participant experience or practice. Consistent with previous findings, our data demonstrated a larger IOR magnitude at 21 degrees relative to 7 degrees stimulus eccentricity. More importantly, no practice-related IOR magnitude changes were observed for both perifoveal and peripheral stimuli, although response times did decrease significantly with practice. These results suggest that the eccentricity effect of IOR is a robust phenomenon which is resistant to practice. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved