... either side. The SOA ranged from 0ms - 500ms. Participants were instructed to respond rapidly to the appearance of the target with a single key-press. As expected, the results indicated that reaction times (RTs) were lowest when the cue was valid, and the target appeared at the cued location. However, as the SOA increased above 300ms, the RT was seen to increase in the valid cue locations to a level higher then if the target occurred in an uncued location. Posner and Cohen concluded that this inhibition of return mechanism operates to prevent an over commitment of attentional resources to any one location. Indeed, this explanation makes intuitive sense at a practical level; if a cued area is searched and nothing is found, why expend valuable limited resources on monitoring that location when there are other locations in need of those resources? This essay will look at several factors within the ...

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