Cross-modal nonspatial repetition inhibition

Lihui Wang & Zhenzhu Yue & Qi Chen

Published online: 14 March 2012# Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2012

Abstract Although it has been well documented that thespatial inhibitory effect induced by repetition of location (i.e.,spatial inhibition of return, or IOR) occurs cross-modally, wedo not yet know whether nonspatial (e.g., color-based)repetition-induced inhibition occurs in a cross-modal fashionas well. In the present study, a novel cross-modal paradigmwith regard to color-based repetition was adopted. An inter-vening neutral cue, whose semantic identity was different fromthose of both the prime and the target, was introduced betweenthe prime and the target in a repetition-priming task. Themodalities of the prime, the neutral cue, and the target couldbe either visual or auditory, and the prime and the target couldrefer either to the same or to different semantic identities. Byadopting this paradigm, we aimed to answer two questions: (1)What are the specific conditions under which cross-modalsemantic-based repetition inhibition occurs? (2) Are the repre-sentations inhibited in the semantic-based repetition inhibitioneffect supramodal or modality-specific? Our results suggestedthat semantic-based repetition inhibition occurs only when theprime and the neutral cue are from the same sensory modality,and it occurs irrespective of whether the modality of the targetis cued and irrespective of whether the modality of the target isauditory or visual. Taken together, our results suggest that theoccurrence of cross-modal nonspatial repetition inhibition is

conditional and that the nonspatial representations inhibited bythe repetition inhibition are supramodal.

Keywords Nonspatial repetition inhibition . Cross-modal .

Modality-specific . Supramodal . Semantic representation .

Semantic priming . Inhibition of return .Multisensoryprocessing

The attention system tends to avoid repetitively examiningpreviously attended (old) object features, in order to potentiallyincrease the efficiency of visual search (Klein, 2000; Posner &Cohen, 1984). Spatially, this mechanism manifests in Posner’sexogenous spatial-cuing task, in which a peripheral cue is firstpresented to attract spatial attention to the cued location (Posner& Cohen, 1984; Posner, Rafal, Choate, & Vaughan, 1985).Detection of a target appearing immediately at the cued loca-tion, as compared to detection of a target at an uncued location,will be both faster and more accurate—that is, a facilitatoryeffect will occur. However, if the cue–target stimulus onsetasynchrony (SOA) is longer than 300 ms and the cue is notinformative with regard to target location, detection of thetarget at the cued location will be delayed, as compared todetection of the target at an uncued location. The latter inhib-itory effect is termed spatial inhibition of return (IOR).

Such repetition-induced inhibition exists not only in thespatial domain but also in nonspatial domains in whichresponses to old (repeated) nonspatial object features (e.g.,color, shape, or line length) are delayed (Fox & de Fockert,2001; Francis & Milliken, 2003; Grison, Paul, Kessler, &Tipper, 2005; Law, Pratt, & Abrams, 1995; Riggio, Patteri,& Umiltà, 2004; Tipper, Grison, & Kessler, 2003). For exam-ple, in a “prime–neutral-cue–target” paradigm, Law et al.presented three consecutive color patches at the same, centrallocation and asked healthy adults to detect the onset of thethird color patch. The first color patch (red or blue) served as aprime, which could have either the same color as or a differentcolor from the third color patch (i.e., the target, red or blue).The intervening color patch had a color different from those of

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article(doi:10.3758/s13414-012-0289-9) contains supplementary material,which is available to authorized users.

L. WangDepartment of Psychology, South China Normal University,510631 Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

Z. YueDepartment of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University,510275 Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

Q. Chen (*)Center for Studies of Psychological Application,South China Normal University,510631 Guangzhou, People’s Republic of Chinae-mail: qi.chen27@gmail.com

Atten Percept Psychophys (2012) 74:867–878DOI 10.3758/s13414-012-0289-9

both the prime and the target. Detection response times (RTs)to the target were slower when the prime and the target had thesame color than when they were of different colors (Law et al.,1995). This nonspatial inhibitory effect disappeared when theneutral cue was not presented (Law et al., 1995), and it turnedinto a facilitatory effect if the target was to be discriminatedunless an appropriate neutral cue was presented between theprime and the target (Fuentes, Vivas, & Humphreys, 1999;Spadaro, He, & Milliken, 2012). For example, in a color-based “target–target” paradigm of repetition inhibition, Spadaroet al. presented two consecutive targets, either of which couldbe blue or yellow and each of which required a discriminativeresponse with regard to the color. The repetition effect could beeither facilitatory or inhibitory, depending on the presence of anintervening stimulus between the two targets. When there wasno intervening stimulus, responses to a target that had the same(cued) color as the preceding target were faster than responsesto a target that had a different (uncued) color—that is, a facil-itatory effect. However, when there was an intervening stimu-lus, which was uninformative with regard to the color of thefollowing target and required a response, the facilitatory effectturned into an inhibitory effect: Responses to a target with thesame (cued) color as the preceding target were slower thanresponses to a target with a different (uncued) color (see alsoFuentes et al., 1999, who used a prime–neutral-cue–targetparadigm). Together, the results above suggested that the pres-ence of the intervening neutral cue is potentially critical fornonspatial repetition inhibition to occur, especially in morecomplicated discrimination tasks.

To explain the repetition inhibition, an episodic-retrievalaccount was proposed (Lupiáñez & Milliken, 1999; Lupiáñez,Milliken, Solano, Weaver, & Tipper, 2001; Milliken, Tipper,Houghton, & Lupiáñez, 2000). According to this account, theonset of a prime is coded as an episodic representation or objectfile (Kahneman, Treisman, &Gibbs, 1992), and the subsequentonset of the target triggers the retrieval of the previous primerepresentation. The properties of the target will then be com-pared with those of the prime. If there is no match (uncued), anew episodic representation will be created for the target. Onthe contrary, if there is a match between the prime and the target(cued), the target will be integrated with the existed episodicrepresentation of the prime. The latter integration processmakes the target lose the benefits of novelty, causing a detec-tion cost. An intervening event between the prime and thetarget further makes the integration process lose the beneficialeffect of retrieval, resulting in an overall cost (see Lupiáñez,2010, for a full discussion of this account). Furthermore, Grisonand colleagues (Grison et al., 2005; Tipper et al., 2003) addedinhibitory mechanisms to the episodic-retrieval process: If anintervening stimulus is presented between the prime and thetarget, a new episodic representation has to be created for it,making the old episodic representation of the prime be taggedfor inhibition (Grison et al., 2005; Tipper et al., 2003). Thus, the

onset of the target, which shares object features with the prime,triggers the retrieval of the representation of the prime togetherwith the inhibitory tag, and accordingly slows down responsesto the repeated targets (Neill, 1997; Zhou & Chen, 2008).

Spatially, location-based repetition inhibition occurs notonly within a sensory modality, but also across different mo-dalities (Spence & Driver, 1998a, 1998b). For example, in anaudiovisual spatial-cueing paradigm, Spence and Driver(1998b) presented a spatially uninformative peripheral auditorycue prior to a visual target that required a speeded detectionresponse. A central reorienting cue was presented between thecue and the target. The central cue could be either visual orauditory. Responses to visual targets that appeared at the same(cued) location as the peripheral auditory cue were significantlyslower than responses to visual targets at the opposite (uncued)location from the auditory cue only when the central cue wasauditory, but not when the central cue was visual or when therewas no central cue at all. On the basis of these results, theresearchers suggested that the conditional occurrence of cross-modal inhibition was due to the fact that auditory sounds wereparticularly effective at shifting cross-modal spatial attention(Spence&Driver, 1997), and they claimed that the presentationof an appropriate central reorienting cue played a crucial role inattracting attention away from the auditory cue (Spence &Driver, 1998b).

Although it has been well documented that spatial repetitioninhibition occurs cross-modally, it remains unclear whetherand how nonspatial repetition inhibition occurs across sensorymodalities. In order to investigate these issues, we incorporatednonspatial repetition inhibition in a cross-modal repetition-priming paradigm, with an intervening neutral cue being pre-sented between the prime and the target (see Fig. 1). The threeconsecutive stimuli (prime, neutral cue, and target) were fromthe same semantic category (i.e., color), and a two-choicedisrimination task was performed on the target. The neutralcue always referred to a semantic identity different from boththe prime and the target. The prime and the target could refer toeither the same or different semantic identities. Also, the mo-dalities of the prime, the neutral cue, and the target could beeither visual or auditory. By adopting the above paradigm, weaimed to answer the following questions: (1) whether and hownonspatial repetition inhibition occurs cross-modally, and (2)whether the nonspatial representations inhibited by nonspatialrepetition inhibition are modality-specific or supramodal.

Since both the modality and the semantic identity of thetarget were cued by the prime in the present cross-modalparadigm, for our study we used a 2 (target modality: auditoryvs. visual) × 2 (prime–neutral-cue [PN] modality repetition: PNmodality same vs. different) × 2 (prime–target modality repeti-tion: modality cued vs. uncued) × 2 (prime–target identityrepetition: identity cued vs. uncued) within-subjects design. Inthe framework of the episodic-retrieval account, both the mo-dality (i.e., sensory-processing properties of the inputs) and the

868 Atten Percept Psychophys (2012) 74:867–878

semantic identity of the prime were coded as integrated episod-ic representations. Upon the presentation of the neutral cue, anew episodic representation that integrates both the modalityproperty and the semantic identity is correspondingly built up.With regard to our first research question, we predicted that ifboth the modality and semantic identity of the prime weretagged for inhibition, regardless of whether or not the newepisodic representation of the neutral cue shared its sensory-processing properties (i.e., modality) with the prime, we shouldobserve both modality-based and semantic-based repetitioninhibition, independent of the modality relationship betweenthe prime and the neutral cue. If, however, whether or not themodality or semantic identity of the prime was inhibiteddepended on whether the prime shared sensory-processingproperties with the neutral cue, we should observe a significantinteraction between prime–neutral-cue modality repetition andprime–target modality/identity repetition. With regard to oursecond research question, we predicted that if semantic-basedrepetition inhibition was modality-specific, we should observesignificant semantic-based repetition inhibition only when theprime and the target not only referred to the same semanticidentity but also shared a sensory modality, but not when theywere from different modalities. In contrast, if the semanticrepresentations inhibited were supramodal, once a new repre-sentation was created for the neutral cue and the old represen-tation of the prime was tagged for inhibition, semantic-basedrepetition inhibition would be observed, irrespective of whetheror not the modality of the target was cued.

Experiment 1

Method

Participants A group of 25 right-handed undergraduate andgraduate students (8males, 17 females; age range: 18–24 years)participated in Experiment 1. All of them had normal orcorrected-to-normal vision and normal hearing, and none ofthem had a history of neurological or psychiatric disorders.

They all gave informed consent prior to the experiment, inaccordance with the Helsinki declaration, and were paid fortheir participations after the experiment. This study was ap-proved by the Academic Committee of the Department ofPsychology, South China Normal University.

Fig. 1 Experimental paradigm and timing of the stimuli in Experiments 1and 2. For both experiments, the prime–neutral-cue–target paradigm ofnonspatial repetition inhibition was used. Written color words and thecorresponding verbal soundswere used as stimuli. A trial with the sequenceauditory–auditory–visual is illustrated in the figure as an example

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Stimuli and experimental design The whole experiment wasrun in a dimly lighted soundproof room. Participants sat infront of a monitor screen, and the eye-to-monitor distance was60 cm. All of the visual stimuli measured 2° (horizontally) ×2° (vertically). The default visual display was a box with blackframes (2.5° × 2.5°) at the center of the screen with a whitebackground. Visual stimuli were always presented inside thecentral box. Participants were instructed to fixate the centralbox throughout the experiment without moving their eyes.The auditory stimuli were voice recordings of a female speak-er delivered binaurally via stereo headphones. Headphonevolume was adjusted for each participant to a comfortablelevel. The visual and auditory stimuli of the prime and thetarget consisted of two written color words and their verbalsounds in Chinese:红 (\hong\) and蓝 (\lan\) [“red” (\rεd\) and“blue” (\blu:\) in English]. The visual and auditory forms ofthe neutral cue were the written color word 绿 (“green” inEnglish) and its verbal sound \lü\ (\gri:n\ in English).

The modality of the prime (visual vs. auditory) wasblocked. For the auditory-prime block, the prime of each trialwas always auditory; for the visual-prime block, the prime ofeach trial was always visual. The order of the two types ofblocks was counterbalanced across participants. For bothtypes of blocks, at the start of each trial the written word orthe verbal sound of one of the target colors (红 or 蓝; i.e.,“red” or “blue” in English) was presented for 300 ms as theprime. The identity of the prime was uninformative withrespect to that of the target. After an interval of 200 ms, theneutral cue was presented for 300 ms. The neutral cue waseither the written word 绿 (“green” in English) or its verbalsound \lü\, which was always different from the identities ofboth the prime and the target. After another interval of 300 ms,the target was presented for 300 ms. The target was either thewritten word or the verbal sound of one of the two targetcolors—that is,红 or蓝. The identity of the target color couldbe either the same as or different from that of the prime(Fig. 1). Participants were required to discriminate the colorrepresented by the target; they used the index fingers of bothof their hands to respond, by pressing one button on theresponse box for 红 (“red”) and the other button for 蓝

(“blue”). The mapping between the two response buttonsand the two colors was counterbalanced across participants.

Therefore, the experiment had a 2 (target modality: auditoryvs. visual) × 2 (PN modality repetition: PN modality same vs.different) × 2 (prime–target modality repetition: modality cuedvs. uncued) × 2 (prime–target identity repetition: identity cuedvs. uncued) within-subjects four-factorial design. In each of the

two types of prime blocks, there were eight experimental con-ditions and 48 trials under each of the eight conditions. There-fore, participants responded to 384 trials in total in each of thetwo types of block, and all of the trials within a block wererandomlymixed. There was a 2-min rest after every 64 trials forboth types of blocks. All of the participants completed a train-ing session of 5 min prior to the formal experiment.

Statistical analysis of the behavioral data For each experi-mental condition, omissions, incorrect responses, and trialswith RTs ±3 SDs beyond the mean RT for all correct trials(3.2% of the data points were excluded as outliers in the wholeexperiment) were first excluded from further analysis. MeanRTs of the rest trials were then calculated for each of theexperimental conditions. Error rates in each of the experimen-tal conditions were calculated as the proportions between thesumof all omissions and incorrect trials and the overall numberof trials; henceforth, they will be shown as percentages.

In order to avoid complicated four-way interactions, andsince we focused on the effects of semantic identity repetitionand modality repetition between the prime and the target, andhow the two types of inhibitory effect were modulated by themodality repetition between the prime and the neutral cue, weran a 2 (modality of target: auditory vs. visual) × 2 (prime–target modality repetition: modality cued vs. uncued) × 2(prime–target identity repetition: identity cued vs. uncued)three-way repeated measures ANOVA for both the PN-modality-same condition and the PN-modality-different con-dition. Significant effects from the reported ANOVAs wereexamined further by planned t tests on the simple effects (withBonferroni corrections).

Results and discussion

Table 1 summarizes the mean RTs and error rates in all of theexperimental conditions. The between-subjects variabilitywas excluded from the standard errors because of the within-subjects design of the present study (Cousineau, 2005; Morey,2008). When the prime and the neutral cue were presented inthe same sensory modality (PN modality same), the three-wayrepeated measures ANOVA revealed that the main effect oftarget modality was significant, F(1, 24) 0 30.9, p < .001,indicating that responses were significantly slower to auditorytargets (605 ms) than to visual targets (561 ms). The maineffect of prime–target modality repetition was significant, F(1,24) 0 36.9, p < .001, indicating that RTs in the modality-cuedcondition (599 ms) were significantly longer than RTs in themodality-uncued condition (567 ms)—that is, a significantmodality-based repetition inhibition effect. The main effectof prime–target identity repetition was also significant, F(1,24) 0 46.2, p < .001, indicating that participants respondedsignificantly more slowly when the identity of the target was

cued (595 ms) than when it was uncued (571 ms)—that is, asignificant semantic-based repetition inhibition. Neither thetwo-way nor the three-way interactions were significant, allFs < 1, suggesting that for both visual and auditory targets,comparable sizes of significant semantic-based repetition in-hibition existed when the modality of the target was eithercued or uncued, and similarly, comparable sizes of significantmodality-based repetition inhibition existed when the identityof the target was either cued or uncued (Table 1 and Fig. 2a).

When the prime and the neutral cue were from differentsensory modalities (PN modality different), the three-way re-peated measures ANOVA revealed that the main effect oftarget modality was significant, F(1, 24) 0 56.3, p < .001,showing that responses to the auditory targets (655 ms) weresignificantly slower than responses to the visual targets(580 ms) (Fig. 2b). The main effect of prime–target modalityrepetition was significant, F(1, 24) 0 25.4, p < .001, indicatingthat responses to a cued modality (636 ms) were significantlyslower than responses to an uncued modality (599 ms)—thatis, a significant modality-based repetition inhibition. The maineffect of prime–target identity repetition was also significant, F(1, 24) 0 7.94, p < .05, showing that RTs in the identity-cuedcondition (612 ms) were significantly shorter than RTs in theidentity-uncued condition (623 ms)—that is, a semantic-basedfacilitatory effect. The interaction between target modality andprime–target modality repetition [F(1, 24) 0 3.50, p 0 .074],the interaction between target modality and prime–target iden-tity repetition [F(1, 24) 0 3.15, p 0 .088], and the interactionbetween prime–target modality repetition and prime–targetidentity repetition [F(1, 24) 0 3.25, p 0 .084] were all margin-ally significant. The three-way interaction was not significant,F(1, 24) 0 2.17, p > .1.

Since the analysis above suggested that in the PN-modality-different condition the effects of modality repetition and iden-tity repetition depended on the modality of the target, wefurther carried out a 2 (prime–target modality repetition: mo-dality cued vs. uncued) × 2 (prime–target identity repetition:identity cued vs. uncued) repeated measures ANOVA for theauditory and the visual targets. For the auditory targets(Fig. 2b, left), the main effect of prime–target modality repeti-tionwas not significant,F(1, 24) 0 1.53, p > .1. Themain effectof prime–target identity repetition was significant, F(1, 24) 09.67, p < .01, indicating that responses in the identity-cuedcondition (646 ms) were significantly faster than responses inthe identity-uncued condition (664 ms)—that is, a significantsemantic-based facilitatory effect. The interaction was alsosignificant, F(1, 24) 0 4.27, p < .05. Further planned t testson simple effects showed that this semantic-based facilitatoryeffect occurred only when the modality of the target was cued[29 ms; t(24) 0 3.12, p < .01], but not when it was uncued(6 ms; t < 1). The modality-based inhibitory effect was notsignificant in the identity-cued condition (6 ms; t < 1), while itwas marginally significant in the identity-uncued condition

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[29 ms; t(24) 0 1.75, p 0 .092] (Fig. 2b, left). For the visualtargets (Fig. 2b, right), the only significant effect was the maineffect of prime–target modality repetition, F(1, 24) 0 23.0, p <.001, indicating that participants responded significantly moreslowly to the cued (609 ms) than to the uncued (552 ms)modality—that is, a significant modality-based inhibitory ef-fect. Neither the main effect of prime–target identity repetitionnor the interaction was significant, both ps > .1, suggestingcomparable sizes of significant modality-based inhibition in

both the identity-cued [59 ms; t(24) 0 5.03, p < .001] and theidentity-uncued [55 ms; t(24) 0 3.89, p < .01] conditions(Fig. 2b, right).

Since the analysis of error rates revealed either patternssimilar to those from the RTs or null effects, we report errorrates under each of the experimental conditions in Table 1 butwill discuss them no further.

Our results in Experiment 1 suggested that both semantic-based and modality-based repetition inhibition did occur, butthat their existences were conditional. Semantic-based repeti-tion inhibition occurred only when the prime and the neutralcue shared sensory-processing properties (i.e., when theywerefrom the same sensory modality), but not when the prime andthe neutral cue came from different modalities (Fig. 2b).Moreover, no matter whether the modality of the target wasauditory or visual, and no matter whether the modality ofthe target was cued or uncued, comparable sizes ofsemantic-based repetition inhibition were observed in thePN-modality-same condition (Fig. 2a), suggesting that whatwas inhibited was a supramodal semantic representation in-dependent of the target modality. On the other hand, themodality-based repetition inhibition occurred dependent onthe modality of the target. Specifically speaking, we observedsignificant modality-based repetition inhibition in both thePN-modality-same and the PN-modality-different conditions,except for the auditory targets in the PN-modality-differentcondition (Fig. 2b, left).

Since the modality of the prime was blocked in the presentexperiment, it could be possible that sustained attention on theblocked modality of the prime throughout a task block mighthave resulted in the present pattern of results, in which onlythe presentation of a neutral cue sharing the same sensoryproperties with the prime could tag the prime for inhibition.To examine whether the conditional occurrences ofsemantic-based and the modality-based repetition inhibitionin Experiment 1 changed when the modality of the prime wasuncertain, we randomly mixed primes from different modali-ties in Experiment 2.

Table 1 Mean reaction times (in milliseconds) and error rates (%), with standard errors from which between-subjects variability was excluded, in all ofthe experimental conditions of Experiment 1

Prime–Neutral Cue Modality Target Modality Prime–Target Modality Identity Cued Identity Uncued

RTs (SE) Errors (SE) RTs (SE) Errors (SE)

Same Auditory Cued 640 (10) 3.1 (1.3) 611 (10) 3.6 (1.6)

Uncued 596 (8) 2.1 (0.8) 574 (9) 1.9 (0.7)

Visual Cued 581 (12) 2.1 (0.6) 563 (10) 2.3 (0.8)

Uncued 562 (7) 3.0 (0.7) 537 (9) 1.8 (0.8)

Different Auditory Cued 649 (13) 4.7 (1.4) 678 (15) 4.9 (1.5)

Uncued 643 (9) 3.6 (0.4) 649 (11) 3.4 (0.7)

Visual Cued 607 (8) 5.0 (1.0) 610 (12) 6.5 (1.2)

Uncued 548 (7) 1.2 (0.7) 555 (6) 2.0 (0.7)

Fig. 2 Mean response times (RTs), with standard errors from whichbetween-subjects variability has been excluded, shown as a function ofall of the experimental conditions in Experiment 1. (a) RTs in the eightexperimental conditions when the prime and the neutral cue were fromthe same modality (PN modality same). (b) RTs in the eight experi-mental conditions when the prime and the neutral cue were fromdifferent modalities (PN modality different)

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Experiment 2

Method

Participants A new group of 22 right-handed undergraduateand graduate students (9 males, 13 females; age range: 18–24 years) participated in Experiment 2. All of them hadnormal or corrected-to-normal vision and normal hearing.They all gave informed consent prior to the experiment, inaccordance with the Helsinki declaration, and were paid fortheir participation after the experiment. None of them had ahistory of neurological or psychiatric disorders. This studywas approved by the Academic Committee of the Departmentof Psychology, South China Normal University.

Stimuli and experimental design All of the experimentalsettings, designs, and procedures were the same as those inExperiment 1, except that the modality of the prime was notblocked, and all of the 16 experimental conditions wererandomly mixed in the present experiment. Participantsrested for 2 min every 64 trials.

Statistical analysis of the behavioral data The statisticalanalysis in Experiment 2 was the same as that in Experiment1, except that this time 6.8% of the overall data points wereexcluded as outliers in the whole experiment.

Results and discussion

The mean RTs and error rates in all of the experimentalconditions of Experiment 2 are reported in Table 2. Whenthe prime and the neutral cue were presented in the samesensory modality (PN modality same), a three-way repeatedmeasures ANOVA revealed that the main effect of targetmodality was significant, F(1, 21) 0 30.7, p < .001, indicatingthat participants responded significantly more slowly to theauditory targets (638 ms) than to the visual targets (586 ms)(Fig. 3a). The main effect of prime–target modality repetitionwas significant, F(1, 21) 0 23.9, p < .001, showing that RTs inthe modality-cued condition (632 ms) were significantly lon-ger than RTs in the modality-uncued condition (592ms)—thatis, significant modality-based repetition inhibition. The maineffect of prime–target identity repetition was also significant,F(1, 21) 0 32.1, p < .001, indicating that responses to theidentity-cued targets (624 ms) were significantly slower thanresponses to the identity-uncued targets (600 ms)—that is, asignificant semantic-based repetition inhibition effect.The interaction between target modality and prime–targetmodality repetition [F(1, 21) 0 4.72, p < .05], the interactionbetween target modality and prime–target identity repetition[F(1, 21) 0 5.31, p < .05], and the interaction between prime–target modality repetition and prime–target identity repetition

[F(1, 21) 0 4.66, p < .05] were all significant. The three-wayinteraction was not significant, F(1, 21) 0 1.74, p > .1.

Separate 2 (prime–target modality repetition: modalitycued vs. uncued) × 2 (prime–target identity repetition: identitycued vs. uncued) repeated measures ANOVAs were thencarried out for the auditory and visual targets. For the auditorytargets (Fig. 3a, left), the main effect of prime–target modalityrepetition was significant, F(1, 21) 0 34.9, p < .001, showingthat responses were significantly slower when the modality ofthe target was cued (664 ms) than when it was uncued(612 ms)—that is, significant modality-based repetition inhi-bition. The main effect of prime–target identity repetition wasalso significant, F(1, 21) 0 30.5, p < .001, indicating thatparticipants responded significantly more slowly in theidentity-cued condition (653 ms) than in the identity-uncuedcondition (623 ms)—that is, a significant effect of semantic-based repetition inhibition. Moreover, the interaction wassignificant, F(1, 21) 0 4.42, p < .05. Planned t tests on thesimple effects showed that the effect size of the semantic-based inhibition was significantly larger in the modality-uncued condition [41 ms; t(21) 0 6.01, p < .001] than in themodality-cued condition [19ms; t(21) 0 2.29, p < .05], a 22-msdifference, t(21) 0 2.10, p < .05. Likewise, the effect size ofmodality-based inhibition was also significantly larger in theidentity-uncued condition [63 ms; t(21) 0 5.76, p < .001] thanin the identity-uncued condition [41ms; t(21)0 4.31, p < .001],another 22-ms difference, t(21) 0 2.10, p < .05 (Fig. 3a, left).

For the visual targets (Fig. 3a, right), the main effect ofprime–target modality repetition was significant, F(1, 21) 07.49, p < .05, indicating that RTs in the modality-cued condi-tion (601 ms) were significantly longer than RTs in themodality-uncued condition (572 ms)—that is, significantmodality-based inhibition. The main effect of prime–targetidentity repetition was also significant, F(1, 21) 0 13.5, p <.01, showing that responses to the cued semantic identities(595 ms) were significantly slower than responses to theuncued identities (578 ms)—that is, a significant semantic-based inhibition effect. The interaction was not significant, F(1, 21) 0 1.60, p > .1, suggesting that semantic-based repeti-tion inhibition was of comparable sizes in both the modality-cued [13 ms; t(21) 0 2.49, p < .05] and the modality-uncued[21 ms; t(21) 0 3.41, p < .01] conditions, and similarly, thatmodality-based repetition inhibition was of comparable sizesin both the identity-cued [25 ms; t(21) 0 2.34, p < .05] and theidentity-uncued [33 ms; t(21) 0 2.87, p < .01] conditions(Fig. 3a, right).

When the prime and the neutral cue were from differentsensory modalities (PN modality different), the main effect oftarget modality was significant, F(1, 21) 0 46.7, p < .001,showing significantly slower responses to the auditory targets(713ms) than to the visual targets (627ms) (Fig. 3b). Themaineffect of prime–target modality repetition was marginally sig-nificant, F(1, 21) 0 3.50, p 0 .076, indicating a significant trend

872 Atten Percept Psychophys (2012) 74:867–878

that responses to the modality-cued targets (677 ms) wereslower than responses to the modality-uncued targets(663 ms). The main effect of prime–target identity repetitionwas not significant, F(1, 21) 0 1.74, p > .1. The interactionbetween target modality and prime–target modality repetition[F(1, 21) 0 6.01, p < .05] and the interaction between prime–target modality repetition and prime–target identity repetition

[F(1, 21) 0 4.88, p < .05] were both significant, but theinteraction between target modality and prime–target identityrepetition was not significant,F(1, 21) 0 2.13, p > .1. The three-way interaction was significant, F(1, 21) 0 8.45, p < .01.

A 2 (prime–target modality repetition: modality cued vs.uncued) × 2 (prime–target identity repetition: identity cued vs.uncued) repeated measures ANOVA was also carried out forthe auditory and visual targets, respectively. For the auditorytargets (Fig. 3b, left), the main effect of prime–target modalityrepetition was not significant, F(1, 21) 0 1.36, p > .1. The maineffect of prime–target identity repetition, however, was signif-icant, F(1, 21) 0 6.39, p < .05, indicating that RTs in theidentity-cued condition (707 ms) were significantly shorterthan RTs in the identity-uncued condition (720 ms)—that is,a semantic-based facilitatory effect. The interaction was alsosignificant, F(1, 21) 0 10.8, p < .01. Planned t tests on thesimple effects showed that the semantic-based facilitatory ef-fect occurred only when the modality of the target was cued[38 ms; t(21) 0 4.00, p < .01], but not when the modality of thetarget was uncued [–11 ms; t(21) 0 1.20, p > .1], and thatsignificant modality-based facilitation occurred only in theidentity-cued condition [45 ms; t(21) 0 2.63, p < .05], but notin the identity-uncued condition (–4 ms; t < 1) (Fig. 3b, left).For the visual targets (Fig. 3b, right), the only significant effectwas the main effect of prime–target modality repetition, F(1,21) 0 11.8, p < .01, indicating that participants respondedsignificantly more slowly to the cued modality (652 ms) thanto the uncued modality (603 ms)—that is, a significantmodality-based repetition inhibition effect (Fig. 3b, right).Neither the main effect of prime–target identity repetition(F < 1) nor the interaction [F(1, 21) 0 1.32, p > .1] wassignificant, suggesting that the significant modality-based in-hibition was of comparable sizes in both the identity-cued[55 ms; t(21) 0 3.71, p < .01] and the identity-uncued[42 ms; t(21) 0 2.67, p < .05] conditions (Fig. 3b, right).

Since the analysis of error rates revealed either patternssimilar to those from the RTs or null effects, we report error

Table 2 Mean reaction times (in milliseconds) and error rates (%), with standard errors from which between-subjects variability was excluded, in all ofthe experimental conditions of Experiment 2

Prime–Neutral Cue Modality Target Modality Prime–Target Modality Identity Cued Identity Uncued

RTs (SE) Errors (SE) RTs (SE) Errors (SE)

Same Auditory Cued 673 (10) 3.5 (1.0) 654 (8) 3.8 (0.9)

Uncued 632 (10) 5.8 (0.8) 591 (10) 8.0 (0.8)

Visual Cued 607 (12) 5.3 (0.7) 594 (13) 5.0 (0.9)

Uncued 582 (7) 6.6 (0.7) 561 (9) 6.3 (1.0)

Different Auditory Cued 684 (9) 7.1 (1.0) 722 (12) 8.9 (1.2)

Uncued 729 (18) 8.6 (1.5) 718 (21) 9.7 (2.0)

Visual Cued 654 (10) 7.0 (0.8) 649 (12) 9.6 (0.8)

Uncued 599 (11) 6.1 (0.8) 607 (7) 7.6 (1.2)

Fig. 3 Mean response times (RTs), with standard errors from whichbetween-subjects variability has been excluded, shown as a function ofall of the experimental conditions in Experiment 2. (a) RTs in the eightexperimental conditions when the prime and the neutral cue were from thesame modality (PN modality same). (b) RTs in the eight experimentalconditions when the prime and the neutral cue were from different modal-ities (PN modality different)

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rates in each of the experimental conditions in Table 2 butwill discuss them no further.

In Experiment 2, we replicated the conditional occurrencesof the semantic-based and modality-based repetition inhibitioneffects obtained in Experiment 1, except for an enlargedsemantic-based inhibitory effect for auditory targets in thePN-modality-same condition when the modality was uncued,as compared to when it was cued (Fig. 3a, left). This interactionwas caused by reduced RTs to the auditory targets when boththe modality and the identity were uncued. The only differentexperimental setting between Experiments 1 and 2 was theuncertainty of the modality of the prime. Since the modalityof the prime in each trial was unpredictable in Experiment 2—that is, participants did not know the exact modality of theprime prior to each trial—attention on themodality of the primein each trial should have been more transient. Therefore, itshould have been easier to create a new episodic representationfor the neutral cue and to tag the prime for inhibition, making itfaster/more efficient to bias the attention system toward a newtarget, especially when both its semantic identity and sensorymodality were new (uncued). Also, the reduced RTs happenedonly for the auditory target (Fig. 3a, left), but not for the visualtarget, even when both the semantic representation and themodality of the visual target were uncued as well (Fig. 3a,right). Since it has been suggested that auditory stimuli havestronger and more automatic alerting effect than do visualstimuli (Posner, Nissen, & Klein, 1976), only processing ofthe auditory, rather than the visual, targets could benefit fromthe modality uncertainty of the prime in the present experiment,when both the semantic identity and the modality of the targetwere uncued.

Besides the general pattern of the conditional occurrences ofthe semantic-based and modality-based types of repetitioninhibition across Experiments 1 and 2, we consistently ob-served a semantic-based facilitation in both experiments inthe PN-modality-different condition for the modality-cued au-ditory target (Figs. 2b, left, and 3b, left). And this semanticfacilitation was caused by reduced RTs to the auditory targets inthe PN-modality-different condition when both the modalityand the semantic identity of the auditory targets were cued—that is, in the auditory–visual–auditory identity-cued condition.However, no facilitated responses were observed for the visualtargets in the PN-modality-different condition, even when boththe modality and the semantic identity of the visual targets werealso cued—that is, in the visual–auditory–visual identity-cuedcondition (Figs. 2b, right, and 3b, right). As we discussedabove, in the PN-modality-different condition—that is, whenthe prime and the neutral cue didn’t share sensory-processingproperties—the semantic representation of the prime was nottagged for inhibition. Therefore, depending on the effectivenessof the neutral cue, the building up of a new episodic represen-tation for the neutral cue could either leave some residualattentional resources on the prime, resulting in facilitation for

the repeated target, or completely eliminate the attentionalresources on the prime, making the activation level the samefor the prime representation as for a new (uncued) representa-tion, resulting in a null effect for the repeated target. Since it hasbeen suggested before in the spatial domain that a visual neutralcue was not effective enough to attract attention completelyaway from the auditory prime (Spence & Driver, 1998b),creating a new episodic representation for the visual neutralcue in the auditory–visual–auditory condition (Figs. 2b, left,and 3b, left) could have left some residual attentional resourceson the semantic identity of the auditory prime and causedfacilitatory effects when the target identity was the same (cued)as that of the prime. By contrast, creating a new episodicrepresentation for the more effective auditory neutral cue inthe visual–auditory–visual condition (Figs. 2b, right, and 3b,right) could completely eliminate the attentional resources onthe semantic identity of the visual prime andmake its activationlevel the same as that for a new (uncued) stimulus, resulting incomparable RTs between the identity-cued and the identity-uncued targets.

Additionally, since we used only one level of SOA in thepresent two experiments, one might argue that the absence ofsemantic-based repetition inhibition in the PN-modality-different condition might be due to the fact that the semantic-based repetition inhibition might have a different time coursewhen the prime and the neutral cue were cross-modal, so thatthe constant SOA between the prime and the target in bothexperiments was not sufficient for semantic-based repetitioninhibition to manifest. In order to test this possibility, we ran acontrol experiment in which three levels of SOA (800, 1,000,and 1,200 ms) were used and only the experimental conditionsin the PN-modality-different condition were included. Wefound a pattern of results similar to that in Experiments 1 and2: Semantic-based repetition inhibition was not observed in thePN-modality-different conditions across all three levels of SOA(see Supplementary Fig. 1). Therefore, the failure to tag thesemantic representation of the prime for inhibition was indeeddue to themodality similarity between the prime and the neutralcue, rather than to the different time courses.

General discussion

In the two experiments of the present study, we aimed toanswer two questions: (1) whether and how nonspatial repe-tition inhibition occurs cross-modally, and (2) whether therepresentations inhibited by repetition are modality-specificor supramodal. Since it has been suggested before that onlywith the introduction of an appropriate intervening stimulusbetween the prime and the target will nonspatial repetitioninhibition occur in discrimination tasks (Fuentes et al., 1999;Spadaro et al., 2012), we adopted the prime–neutral-cue–target paradigm of nonspatial repetition inhibition in a two-

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choice discrimination task. No matter whether the modality ofthe prime was blocked (Exp. 1) or mixed (Exp. 2), our dataconsistently showed that semantic-based repetition inhibitionoccurred dependent on the modality relationship between theprime and the neutral cue, and that modality-based repetitioninhibition occurred dependent on the modality of the target.Specifically speaking, semantic-based repetition inhibitionoccurred only when the prime and the neutral cue shared asensory modality (Figs. 2a and 3a), but not when the primeand the neutral cue were from different sensory modalities(Figs. 2b and 3b). Modality-based repetition inhibition oc-curred both when the prime and the neutral cue shared andwhen they differed in sensory modality, except for auditorytargets when the prime and the neutral cue were from differentsensory modalities—that is, in the auditory–visual–auditorycondition (Figs. 2 and 3).

According to the episodic-retrieval account (Lupiáñez &Milliken, 1999; Lupiáñez et al., 2001; Milliken et al., 2000),both the modality property and the semantic identity of theprime are coded into an integrated episodic representation(Kahneman et al., 1992). Upon the presentation of the neutralcue, a new episodic representation would accordingly be cre-ated, and the old episodic representation of the prime would betagged for inhibition (Grison et al., 2005; Tipper et al., 2003).The question was whether the modality and the semanticidentity of the prime were both unconditionally tagged forinhibition, or whether each of them was tagged for inhibitiononly under certain conditions. Our results indicated that thelatter case was true. With regard to semantic-based inhibition,the semantic identity of the prime was tagged for inhibitiononly when the prime and the neutral cue shared sensory-processing properties (i.e., a modality) (Figs. 2a and 3a). Theseresults suggest that only when the neutral cue could not beeasily separated from the prime on the basis of early sensory-processing properties and the old representation of the primecompeted forwithin-modal processing resourceswith the newlycreated representation of the neutral cue is the prime tagged forinhibition. By contrast, if the old representation differed fromthe new representation even in its early sensory-processingproperties, the former representation would not be inhibited(Figs. 2b and 3b), probably because the two consecutive repre-sentations were clearly separable and did not compete forattentional resources within a certain sensory modality.

With regard to modality-based inhibition, the modality ofthe prime was inhibited both when the modalities of the primeand the neutral cue were the same and when they were differ-ent, except for auditory targets in the PN-modality-differentcondition. These results suggest that once the sensory modalityof the prime has been attended, it will be tagged for inhibition,irrespective of whether the subsequent neutral cue is from thesame or from a different modality. In order to build up anaccurate episodic representation of a stimulus, the stimulusfirst has to be fully individualized from other stimuli, both

physically and temporally (Kanwisher, 1987, 1991). Especial-ly in the present cross-modal prime–neutral-cue–target para-digm, the early sensory-processing properties may play acritical role in individualizing the neutral cue from the prime.Therefore, in order to efficiently integrate the sensory proper-ties and the semantic identity of the neutral cue into a newepisodic representation, the modality property of the previousprime needs to be inhibited, irrespective of the modality rela-tionship between the prime and the neutral cue. One exception,however, was with auditory targets in the PN-modality-different condition (Figs. 2b, left, and 3b, left). For the identi-ty-cued auditory targets in the PN-modality-different condi-tion, modality-based inhibition occurred in neither Experiment1 nor Experiment 2, because of the reduced (facilitated) RTs inthe auditory–visual–auditory identity-cued condition (see thediscussion in Exp. 2). On the other hand, for the identity-uncued auditory targets in the PN-modality-different condi-tion, modality-based inhibition occurred only in Experiment1, but not in Experiment 2. The existence of repetition inhibi-tion is determined not only by the physical match between theprime and the target, but also by the attentional set participantshave adopted in the tasks at hand (Chen, Fuentes, & Zhou,2010; Chen, Zhang, & Zhou, 2007; Lupiáñez et al., 2001;Lupiáñez et al. 2007; Milliken et al., 2000). Since the modalityof the prime was blocked in Experiment 1, so that the partic-ipants were fully aware that the prime modality was uninfor-mative with regard to the target, the participants could adopta sustained inhibitory tendency toward the blocked modalitythroughout the task block. Therefore, as long as this modality-based inhibition was not cancelled out by the semantic-basedfacilitation, as happened in the auditory–visual–auditoryidentity-cued condition, the modality-based inhibition keptexisting for the identity-uncued auditory targets in the PN-modality-different condition. By contrast, since the modalitiesof the primes were randomly mixed in Experiment 2, noinhibitory attentional set could be adopted toward a specificmodality. Also, because auditory stimuli have a stronger alert-ing effect than do visual stimuli (Posner, Nissen, & Klein,1976), it would be difficult for the visual neutral cue to tagthe auditory prime for inhibition (i.e., in the auditory–visual–auditory condition), resulting in a null modality effect forauditory targets.

The second question in the present study was whether thesemantic representation inhibited by repetition was supramo-dal or modality-specific. In the spatial domain, it has beensuggested that what is inhibited by spatial IOR is a supra-modal spatial representation (Spence et al., 2000; Tassinari &Campara, 1996). For example, Spence et al. (2000) used atarget–target paradigm with spatial IOR, by presenting a ran-dom sequence of visual, tactile, and auditory targets to eitherthe left or the right side of a central fixation, to investigatewhether spatial IOR occurred between consecutive targetsfrom the three different modalities. They found that detection

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responses were slower if the current target was presented at thesame (cued) spatial position as the preceding target, irrespec-tive of the modality of both the present and the precedingtarget, indicating that spatial IOR is supramodal. These resultsalso provide supporting evidence that, despite the vast differ-ences in their initial stages of spatial processing, differentsensory modalities may share a spatial attention system inwhich spatial positions are coded as common representationsacross sensory modalities (Driver & Noesselt, 2008; Driver &Spence, 1998a, 1998b). However, in terms of the nonspatialrepetition inhibition effect, it remains unclear whetherthe nonspatial representation inhibited is supramodal ormodality-specific. In the present study, our results suggestedthat the conditional occurrence of semantic-based inhibition inthe PN-modality-same condition was independent of bothwhether or not the modality of the target was cued andwhether the modality of the target was visual or auditory.The validity of the modality cue affected the effect size ofsemantic-based inhibition only under certain conditions (e.g.,in the visual–visual–auditory condition of Exp. 2), but not theoccurrence of the effect per se. These results together sug-gested that once the semantic identity of the prime was taggedfor inhibition, what was inhibited was a supramodal represen-tation independent of both whether the modality of the targetwas cued and whether the modality of the target was visualor auditory.

The repetition inhibition—that is, the delayed responsesinduced by repeated stimulus features—has long been ob-served in both the spatial and nonspatial domains. Althoughthe spatial and nonspatial inhibitory effects showed similarpatterns, they differed in some respects. First, a spatialinhibitory effect was consistently observed in both detectiontasks (Hu, Samuel, & Chan, 2011; Posner & Cohen, 1984)and a discrimination task in which participants were re-quired to make a two-alternative forced choice (Hu &Samuel, 2011; Lupiáñez, Milan, Tornay, Madrid, & Tudela,1997; Lupiáñez et al., 2001), but a nonspatial repetitioneffect was often observed in detection tasks (Hu et al.,2011; Law et al., 1995) but turned into a null/facilitatoryeffect in discrimination tasks (Hu & Samuel, 2011). Second,the introduction of a neutral cue between the prime and thetarget is not necessary for spatial inhibition to occur, sincethe spatial inhibitory effect was observed even when therewas no central cue in both the detection task (Hu et al.,2011; Prime, Visser, & Ward, 2006) and the discriminationtask (Hu & Samuel, 2011). Moreover, the spatial inhibitoryeffect could be observed even if attention was maintained atthe cued location and no central cue was presented (Berger,Henik, & Rafal, 2005; Berlucchi, Chelazzi, & Tassinari,2000; Chica, Lupiáñez, & Bartolomeo, 2006). Therefore,the role of the central reorienting cue during spatial inhibi-tion should be something other than disengaging attentionand returning it to fixation (see Lupiáñez, 2010, for a

discussion). For example, Lupiáñez proposed that the onsetof the peripheral cue in spatial IOR triggers both the orient-ing of attention and the activation of an object representationthat is used to process the target (cue–target integration).The latter activation will enhance the discrimination of thetarget (facilitation) but hinder the target’s detection (inhibi-tion). The central fixation cue between the peripheral cueand the target serves to stop the cue–target integrationprocess, resulting in the absence of a facilitatory effect andthe appearance of an inhibitory effect—that is, spatial IOR(Lupiáñez, 2010). In contrast to the minor role of the centralcue for the spatial inhibitory effect, the intervening neutralcue plays a critical role for nonspatial inhibition to occur indiscrimination tasks: The nonspatial inhibitory effect did notoccur in a discrimination task (Hu & Samuel, 2011) unlessan appropriate intervening neutral stimulus was presentedbetween the cue and the target (Fuentes et al., 1999; Spadaroet al., 2012). In the present study, by adopting a cross-modalparadigm and by introducing a neutral cue between theprime and the target in a discrimination task, we furthershowed that it becomes necessary for selective attention toinhibit the old episodic representation of the prime onlywhen building up a new episodic representation for theneutral cue is more demanding—for example, when theneutral cue shares sensory-processing properties with theprime, making the individualization of the neutral cue moredifficult (as in our study), or when a response is required for theneutral cue in a target–target paradigm of repetition inhibition,increasing the processing load of the neutral cue (Spadaro et al.,2012).

In conclusion, by introducing a novel, cross-modal prime–neutral-cue–target paradigm, we revealed that both semantic-based and modality-based repetition inhibition can exist undercertain conditions. In our experiments, semantic-based inhibi-tion occurred only when the prime and the neutral cue werefrom the same modality, suggesting that the semantic identityof the prime was tagged for inhibition only when the consec-utive prime and neutral cue were not clearly separable on thebasis of their early sensory-processing properties, so that theyprobably competed for processing resources within a modal-ity. Moreover, once the semantic identity of the prime wastagged for inhibition after the creation of a new episodicrepresentation for the neutral cue, the semantic-based repeti-tion inhibition occurred independent of both whether themodality of the target was cued and whether the modality ofthe target was visual or auditory, indicating that the semanticrepresentation inhibited by the semantic-based repetition in-hibition was supramodal. On the other hand, modality-basedinhibition occurred in all of the conditions except the audito-ry–visual–auditory condition, suggesting that the occurrenceof modality-based inhibition might depend on the relativealerting strength between the sensory modalities of consecu-tively presented stimuli.

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Author note We are grateful to all our volunteers. Q.C. is supported bythe Foundation for the Authors of National Excellent Doctoral Disserta-tions of P.R. China (200907) and by grants from the Natural ScienceFoundation of China (30970895, 31070994). Z.Y. is supported by thegrants from the Natural Science Foundation of China (31100739), theMinistry of Education of China (10YJCXLX055), and the FundamentalResearch Funds for the Central Universities.

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