迴向抑制與注意力脫離：凝視線索之重要性

Inhibition of Return and Attentional Disengagement: The Importance of a Fixation Cue

倘若注意力要回到先前曾經注意過的位置，需要花費比回到先前未注意過的位置要長的時間。這樣的效果被稱為迴向抑制。在一個典型的迴向抑制研究之中，會藉由外生性線索將注意力吸引到一個特定的位置，之後再測試參與者對於呈現在該位置的刺激的表現。雖然注意力脫離被認為是產生迴向抑制的關鍵成分，過去的研究並未針對凝視線索在注意力脫離中扮演的角色進行充分的研究。本研究藉由同時操弄外生性與內生性注意力線索，展現凝視線索做為外生性線索的重要性。結果顯示，唯有在不存在內生性注意力轉移的情況下，注意力系統方需要凝視性線索來引發迴向抑制效果。

Inhibition of return is the effect due to which it takes a longer time for people to attend recently examined locations. In a typical inhibition of return paradigm, a peripheral location was exogenously cued, following which attention was disengaged from the cued location. Thereafter, return to the cued location was inhibited. Although attentional disengagement from the cued location was a critical component in inhibition of return, the effect of a fixation cue following the peripheral cue on eliciting exogenously triggered attentional disengagement was not fully tested. The present study examined the effect of this fixation cue, while endogenous attentional disengagement was varied across the experiments. It was demonstrated that the fixation cue, or exogenously triggered attentional disengagement from the cued location, was critical to inhibition of return only in the absence of endogenous attentional disengagement from the cued location.