In this study we examine the level at which inhibition of return (IOR) affects the processing of visual stimuli. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the effect of IOR on semantic priming. Experiments 3 and 4 examined the effect on flanker interference. In both cases IOR could reverse the standard effects. We suggest that when attention is drawn away from a location, there is temporary inhibitory tagging of stimuli that are presented there. This tagging extends to the semantic and response-relevant properties of stimuli, helping to bias attention away from old and towards new events. Due to inhibitory tagging, responses to new targets can be slowed down when targets are semantically related (Experiments 1 and 2) or require the same response (Experiments 3 and 4) as inhibited primes.
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