The Effect Of Cognitive Style And Working Memory Loading Condition On Inhibition Of Return

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to the slowing of a response to a target appearing at a previously attended location, which is a inhibitory phenomenon of spatial selective attention. This inhibitory effect, first described and labeled inhibition of return by Posner and Cohen, was said to reflect a reflexive and adaptive shift of psychological mechanism, encouraging orienting towards novel locations not always focusing on previous ones. With the development of related studies in IOR, more attention had been paid to the special groups. At present, researches on individual differences in IOR mainly lied on the differences of varied-age groups, healthy-unhealthy groups, normal-disabled groups, good-bad students in their scores and even cognitive style (field- dependence/ independence, FDI), with different magnitude of IOR and time course. Many studies showed that cognitive style was associated with attention process, that is to say, there are differences in attention process between field-dependence (FD) and field-independence (FI) subjects. Additionally, IOR was sorted into the category of spatial selective attention, affected by the working memory(WM)condition. Hence, the purpose here was to study the differences between FD and FI individuals in IOR task, and influence on them when the working memory condition is changed.In this study, 2 experiments were performed, with difficult discrimination tasks: Experiment 1 used the double duty disturbance model in the dynamic model based on the object, studied the differences between FD and FI individuals in IOR task using varied working memory conditions, which adopted a 2 (cognitive style: FD, FI)×2 (target location: cued, uncued)×3(WM loading condition: none WM, spatial WM, spoken language WM) mixed factorial design. Target location and WM loading condition were within-subject variables and cognitive style was between-subjects variable. Dependent variable was tested for the detection of reaction time and error rate, the capacity of IOR is based on cued location reaction time minus cued location reaction time. Experiment 2 used the double duty disturbance model in the static model based on the location, studied the differences between FD and FI individuals in IOR task using varied working memory conditions, which adopted a 2 (cognitive style: FD, FI)×2 (target location: cued, uncued)×3(WM loading condition: none WM , spatial WM, spoken language WM) mixed factorial design. Target location and WM loading condition were within-subject variables and cognitive style was between-subjects variable. Dependent variable was tested for the detection of reaction time and error rate, the magnitude of IOR is based on cued location reaction time minus uncued location reaction time.The results indicated: (1) In the dynamic model based on the object, the magnitude of IOR in individuals of different WM loading conditions was not significantly different. Experiment 1 results indicated, the cued location reaction time was greater than uncued location reaction time both in spatial WM loading condition and spoken language WM loading condition. That was to say IOR existed in the both WM loading condition. And the difference in the magnitude of IOR both in spatial WM loading condition and spoken language WM loading condition was not different with in the none WM loading condition. (2) In the static model based on the location, the influence of different WM loading conditions on the magnitude of IOR was different between FD and FI individuals. In the none WM loading condition, both FD and FI individuals inhibited significant IOR. FD individuals didn't inhibit significant IOR in both spatial WM loading condition and spoken language WM loading condition. In the spoken language WM loading condition FI individuals inhibited significant IOR, but not in spatial WM loading condition. (3) Reaction time in individuals of different cognitive style was significantly different. The results in both experiment 1and experiment 2 indicated that FI individuals'reaction time was greater than FD individuals'. (4) The influence of different task-irrelevant interruption on the WM was different between FD and FI individuals. The WM in individuals of different cognitive style was significantly different when the task-irrelevant interruption was greater but non't when the task-irrelevant interruption was smaller.