Onset and offset of a visual cue have different effects on manual reaction time to a visual target

Simple reaction time (RT) to a peripheral visual target is shortened when a non-informative cue is flashed at target location 100-150 ms before target onset (early facilitation). Afterwards, RT to targets appearing at cue location is lengthened (inhibition of return). In the present study we have investigated if these effects arise from the onset and/or from the offset of the cue and the time-dependence of these effects. Twelve subjects were asked not to respond a non-informative cue (S1) appearing on a computer screen 6§ to the right or to the left of a fixation point (FP), but to respond, by pressing a key, to a target (S2) occurring at 4§ from the FP in the same hemifield as S1 or in the opposite hemifield. There were two different types of trials. In both, a brief auditory stimulus (W) occurring 700 ms after the onset of FP warned the subject that S2 would appear 100, 200, 300, 500 or 800 ms later. Trials where the onset of S1 coincides with W and S1 remains on until the response to S2 are called ON trials. In OFF trials, S1 onset occurs at the beginning of the trial and its offset coincides with W. We found that in On trials, RTs to S2 occurring ipsi-or contralaterally to S1 did not differ. In contrast, S1 offset elicited an inhibition of its hemifield beginning at least 100 ms after S1 offset and extending up to 800 ms

Spatial distribution of the inhibition elicited by the offset of a visual cue on manual reaction time to a visual target

Simple reaction time (RT) to a peripheral visual target (S2) is shortened when a non-informative cue (S1) is flashed at the S2 location 100-150 ms before target onset (early facilitation). Afterwards, RTs to targets appearing at the S1 location are lengthened (inhbition of return). In the present investigation we studied the spatial distribution of the inhibition elicited by the offset of S1. Twelve subjects were asked not to respond to S1 which appeared on a horizontal meridian located 5.5§ above the fixation point (FP), but to respond, by pressing a key, to a target (S2) occurring at 5.5§ to the left or to the right. S1 could appear at one of 9 locations along this meridian (5.5, 3.5, 1.5, and 0.5§ to the left, 0.0 and 0.5, 1.5, 3.5, and 5.5§ to the right) and S2 occurred only at the most eccentric positions. Each trial began with the presentation of FP. Five-hundred ms later, S1 appeared and remained on for 700 ms. One hundred or 800 ms after S1 offset, S2 appeared in the same or in the opposite hemifield. We found that the offset of S1 elicits an inhibition (OFF-inhibition) which has the following features: a) it is maximal at cue's position; b) it spreads to other positions in the cued hemifield, and c) it decreases when the time interval between S1 offset and S2 onset increases from 100 to 800 ms