The influence of location changes on cumulative inter-trial inhibition within repeated visual search

Abstract

For an inefficient visual search task, where items remains visible across trials but the locations of targets are varied, search times increase cumulatively with increases in the number of task repetitions. This phenomenon suggests that inhibition for old distractors is carried over successive trials. The present study examines whether cumulative inter-trial inhibition effects will be preserved, even when the locations of search items within a display (environmental coordinates) are momentarily changed while the configuration of items remains constant. The results indicate that inter-trial inhibition occurs across trials under such situations (Experiment 1). Furthermore, cumulative inhibition also occurs when search items disappear from the display and reappear from the right to move smoothly towards the center (Experiment 2). These results suggest that cumulative inter-trial inhibition occurs even for large location changes if the configuration of items is preserved across trials.