Returning to the Effects of Inhibition of Return on Lexical Decisionsreturning to the Effects of Inhibition of Return on Lexical Decisions

Abstract Inhibition of return (IOR), an inhibitory after-effect of visuo-spatial orienting, typically results in slower responding to targets presented in recently attended locations. Although IOR has been ubiquitously observed in simple tasks, the extent to which it influences more complex tasks, such as lexical decisions (Chasteen & Pratt 1999 Psychol. Sci. 10, 41–46. (doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00104)), is largely unexplored. There are two forms of IOR: an input form operating to reduce the quality of information, and an output form operating to bias responding. With careful monitoring of eye movements, our first experiment sought to examine how these two forms (generated with and without saccades to the cue) might affect lexical decisions. By contrast to Chasteen & Pratt, we found no main effect of IOR and no interaction between IOR and word frequency. Our second experiment was a direct, pre-registered replication of Chasteen & Pratt to determine whether we would replicate their finding of IOR slowing lexical decisions, and importantly their main finding of an interaction between IOR and word frequency. Consistent with Chasteen & Pratt in Experiment 2, we too found that IOR does delay lexical decisions, but unlike what was reported by them, IOR did not vary with word frequency.