The left to right in inhibition of return in discrimination tasks

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to a slowed response to a target appearing at a previously attended location. We investigated left-to-right bias in IOR in discrimination tasks. The results of experiment 1 and 2 showed that the trend of the IOR effect was different. IOR magnitude was no significant when central fixation cue was absent in experiment 1, but IOR was significant when direction of cue presentation was left to right at 400,700,1000ms SOAs in experiment 2. In experiment 2, the results indicated an earlier disengagement of attention than when direction of cue presentation was left to right. Thus, the regularity of shifting attention in a particular way seems to be the cause of the bias observed. Those results indicate that the orienting attention is influenced by central fixation cue and the experience plays an important role in IOR.