Chapter 1 explores the transient attentional processes that aid successful behaviour in Negative Priming (NP) and Inhibition of Return (JOR) tasks to dete1mine whether these mechanisms can mediate performance over time. Evidence is
provided that inhibition w1derlies behaviour in NP tasks, where responses are slow to a target that was previously an irrelevant distractor. Converging evidence that transient neural suppression aids behaviour in NP tasks is described, as well as a neural network model that explains this process. Interestingly, recent research has found NP when up to 30 days intervene between ignoring a distractor and responding to it as a target. Because neural inhibition decays quickly and over
processing of intervening items, memory processes must be engaged when performance is measured over time. It is proposed that irrelevant distractors are encoded into episodic memory along with associated inhibition, and when they are
later presented as targets, episodic retrieval reinstates inhibition to slow response. A second paradigm, IOR, can detennine whether episodic retrieval of inhibition generally aids long-term behaviour. IOR effects also reveal inhibitory processes,
as response is slow to a target location cued with an irrelevant fl ash in the proceeding display. These inhibitory processes are the same as in NP, because they are explained by transient neural suppression, they elicit similar behavioural
effects, and they are explained by the same neural network model. Although no research has investigated long-term effects, recent studies have found IOR when cueing six consecutive objects over nearly four seconds. If inhibition associated
with objects is maintained in working memory, then object-based inhibition may be stored in and retrieved from episodic memory to reveal long-term IOR.
Accordingly, the current research investigates the existence of long-term NP and IOR effects in new implicit memory tasks designed to encourage observation of inhibition over time. Prior research suggests the experimental procedures must
encourage encoding and retrieval of information from episodic memory by presenting novel stimuli, processing object-based representations, using an intervening task, and reinstating encoding context. In sum, finding long-term NP
and IOR effects may shed light on the nature of the processes that aid goaldirected behaviour over time.