Effects of SOA and Age on the Inhibition of Return in a Localization Task

The objective of this research was to study attentional tendencies, specifically the effect of inhibition of return (IOR), comparing a sample of young adults (N = 72) and elderly (N = 74). A task of attention discrimination was used in combination with SOAs (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony) of 300, 750,100 and 1500 ms are used. The results showed that both groups obtained higher reaction times (RT) for the cued assays than the uncued, these data indicated the existence of an IOR effect. In addition, the young adults continued a course of constant decrease in their RT as the SOA increases, however, the older ones also followed a decrease in their RT until reaching the SOA of 1500 ms in which they experienced a significant increase. The observed difference between groups in the 1500 ms SOA indicated that older adults have an IOR effect on long SOAs greater and more durable IOR effect than younger.