Scene-based and object-centered inhibition of return: Evidence for dual orienting mechanisms

We investigated whether inhibition of return (IOR) could be observed in loc ation-based, scene-based, and object-centered frames of reference. IOR was found to move both with a separate cued object (scene-based) and with a loc ation within a single rotating object (object-centered). importantly, howev er, IOR was also associated with the environmental location cued when cuing was of a separate object (scene-based), whereas facilitation of the cued l ocation was found when cuing was of a component within an object. These res ults suggest that location is of central importance to scene-based represen tations of separate objects, which appear to be encoded in viewer-centered coordinates, whereas environmental locus is of little relevance when attent ion orients within a single object. The results also provide further eviden ce for the coexistence of both excitation and inhibition associated with un informative exogenous cues.