Effect Of Cue Evoked Potentials On ERP Study Of Inhibition Of Return

Inhibition of return(IOR)refers to the phenomenon that when cue-target onset asynchrony is more than 250ms,people respond more quickly to previously unattended than to attended locations.The cognitive mechanism underlineIOR has always been a hot focus for researchers,but it is also the most controversial field.Previous studies have used Event Related Potentials(ERPs)to investigate the cognitive mechanism underline IOR,but there are many inconsistencies among these results.Interestingly,none of these studies can well control the aliasing of cue evoked potentials with target evoked potentials.In this research,event-related potentials(ERPs)were used to explore the possible effects of cue’s potentials on the ERP components on inhibition of return.In the first study,based on the traditional paradigm of inhibition of return,pure cue evoked potentials without target stimuli and without subjects’response were set up to monitor the evoked potentials of cues.In data analysis,subtraction logic was used to manipulate the effect of cue evoked potentials.The results showed that cue evoked potentials affected both target-based N1 and Nd250 IOR-related ERPs,suggesting that cue evoked potentials are indeed a potential confusing variable,which needs the attention of subsequent researchers.In the second study,based on the first study,the effects of cue evoked potentials on N2pc-based asymmetric differential waves were investigated,and the dynamic effects of attention in the cue-target paradigm in target processing were further explored.The results showed that the aliasing of cue evoked potentials had a significant effect on N2pc components.After controlling the cue evoked potentials,we observed the increase of N2pc component’s hysteresis at the attended locations,the latency was later but the amplitude was larger under theattended locations than unattended locations.This result reveals for the first time that,unlike previous studies that the cognitive system only has a delayed attention processing to theattended locations,the cognitive system also has an additional compensation mechanism for the attended locations.The results of this study provide more abundant evidence for the cognitive mechanism underline IOR,and also indicate that the problem of cue evoked potential is a confusing variable that needs the attention of researchers.