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Temporary inhibitory tagging at previously attended locations: Evidence from event‐related potentials
Author(s) -
Zhang Yang,
Zhou Xiaolin,
Zhang Ming
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2012.01412.x
Subject(s) - cued speech , psychology , stroop effect , perception , stimulus (psychology) , inhibition of return , event related potential , cognitive psychology , audiology , communication , contingent negative variation , cognition , neuroscience , developmental psychology , visual attention , medicine
Recent studies propose that a mechanism termed “inhibitory tagging” acts upon the processing of the target at the attended location by temporarily blocking the stimulus‐response mapping. Here we combined the cue–target paradigm with the Stroop task and measured event‐related potential ( ERP ) responses to the color of a color word presented at the previously attended (cued) or unattended (uncued) location. We found that the conflict‐related N 450 effect emerged later and had a smaller size at the cued than the uncued location. The overall ERP responses to the target showed lower P 1 and N 1 amplitude at the cued than the uncued location. Although the P 1/ N 1 effect may reflect deficient perceptual processing of the target, the delay of the N 450 suggests that the link between perceptual processing and response activation is temporarily blocked at the previously attended location.