Inhibitory Tagging In Inhibition Of Return Affects Color Stroop Conflict Resolution

The inhibition of return effect is when the individual’s attention back to the noticed position or objects, the reaction time will be extended to exhibit and hysteresis. The inhibition of return is a very important field in the study of attention. A lot of research about it’s mechanism is launched by many researchers. The attention inhibition mechanism, reaction inhibition mechanism and the double inhibition mechanism are all the earlier theoretical assumptions. Recently the more influential theory is inhibitory tagging mechanism. When the stimulus appears in the clue position again,the two attetion systems in the network will be activated: the directional system and the inhibitory tagging system. The inhibitory tagging system in the clue position interrupts the link between stimulus and response temporarily.In this thesis, we used two behavioral studies that combined the inhibition of return paradigm and color Stroop paradigm. By manipulating the Stroop conflict at cued versus uncued location, we aimed to investigate how IOR could modulate higher cognitive processing and the function mechanism between orietation network and excutive network. And to verity the rationality of inhibitory tagging mechanism theory.In experiment 1, we combined the typical cue-target paradigm and the Stroop conflict paradigm, and uesd the 2×2×3 three factors mixed design. The within subjects variables is the cue validity and the color consistency, the between subjects variables is the different SOA. Such a design would enable us to examine the modulation of spatial cueing on the conflict processing. The experimental results show that, in SOA=650ms, when the target stimulus appears in cued position, the Stroop effect was significantly smaller than it’s in the uncued location.In experiment 2, we decomposed the typical Stroop effect into the semantic components and the response components, and uesd the 2×3 within the subjects experiment design. The variables are the cue validity and the semantic-reaction consistency. Such a task allowed us to examine how the inhibitory tagging work between the semantic representation and the stimuli-response mapping. The experimental results show that, the inhibition of return effects both semantic components and reaction components, but only the effect of semantic component significantly.The above experiments show that, the inhibitory tagging system in the inhibition of return effects have temporary effects on color Stroop conflict resolution. Instead of being applied to the connection level between the stimulus and the response, the mechanism is likely to be applied to the semantic representation level.