Cue Duration Affects Attentional Capture without Modulating Inhibition of Return

In the cueing paradigm, an abrupt onset of the cue brings about both the facilitation effect and inhibition of return (IOR) depending on the cue-target interval. Previous studies showed that physical properties of the cue such as duration affect the occurrences of facilitation effect and IOR. However, other study indicated that cue duration did not affect these two effects. The first aim of this study was to clarify how cue duration affects the facilitation effect. The results showed that the temporal properties of the cue influenced the facilitation effect. The second aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the magnitude of the facilitation effect and that of IOR with the results in Experiment 1 and 2. There were four findings that suggested discrepancies in the effect of spatial cueing between the facilitation effect and IOR. In conclusion, these two processes were driven by distinct mechanisms.