Spatial Stroop and spatial orienting: the role of onset versus offset cues

The present study investigated whether offset cues have the same attentional consequences in the spatial Stroop effect as onset cues. Experiments 1 and 2 compared the attentional effects of onset–offset cues versus offset cues on the spatial Stroop effect, whereas Experiment 3 compared the attentional effects of onset versus offset cues. Across these experiments, independent of cue type (onset–offset or onset vs. offset) and even at long stimulus-onset asynchrony, attentional cueing did not revert into inhibition of return and was modulated by spatial Stroop with greater cueing effects for incongruent arrow’s direction and position. In addition, onset–offset or onset and offset cues produced comparable cueing effects in the location-direction congruent condition, and onset–offset or onset cues produced greater facilitation than offset cues in the incongruent condition. From a different perspective, peripheral cueing modulated the spatial Stroop effect in the same direction for onset–offset or onset and offset cues, although the reduction in spatial Stroop at cued locations was smaller with offset than with onset–offset or onset cues.