Inhibition of return (IOR) has been described in terms of two function
al components. The location-based component is associated with descrip
tions of spatially fixed, environmental locations; the object-based co
mponent is associated with more abstract descriptions of spatially inv
ariant objects. In the present study, we hypothesized that the locatio
n-based component may also be associated with descriptions of spatiall
y invariant objects because, like environment-based descriptions, obje
ct-based descriptions have an intrinsic spatial structure. To test thi
s hypothesis, we employed a computer-generated depiction of a brick th
at rotated in depth between the presentations of cue and target. The r
esults of four experiments showed that IOR accrued to locations that r
emained fixed with respect to the brick as well as the environment, su
ggesting that both object-based and environment-based descriptions can
influence location-based IOR.