O-IOR has been observed in a variety of visual tasks, including simple eye-movement tasks (Farrell, Ludwig, Ellis, & Gilchrist,
2010; Hooge & Frens,
2000; Ludwig, Farrell, Ellis, & Gilchrist,
2009), search tasks (Bays & Husain,
2012; Dodd, Van der Stigchel, & Hollingworth,
2009; Hooge, Over, van Wezel, & Frens,
2005; Klein & MacInnes,
1999; MacInnes & Klein,
2003; Smith & Henderson,
2011a,
2011b; Thomas et al.,
2006), nonsearch tasks such as scene memorization and free viewing (Bays & Husain,
2012; Hooge et al.,
2005; Luke, Schmidt & Henderson,
2013; Smith & Henderson,
2009; Wilming, Harst, Schmidt, & König,
2013), and reading (Henderson & Luke,
2012; Rayner, Juhasz, Ashby, & Clifton,
2003; Weger & Inhoff,
2006). The fact that O-IOR has been observed across many different tasks suggests that O-IOR is a domain-general oculomotor phenomenon. However, it remains unclear whether O-IOR is equivalent across different tasks. There is some evidence that task demands do modulate O-IOR. For example, Dodd et al. (
2009) observed O-IOR in scene search, but not in scene memorization, aesthetic preference, or free viewing. Several authors have argued that O-IOR will be most pronounced during search due to the need to dismiss the information at fixation and move on to new locations as quickly as possible until the search target is found (Dodd et al.,
2009; Klein & Hilchey,
2011). By comparison, a task that requires more detailed foveal processing, such as scene memorization, may exhibit less O-IOR (Dodd et al.,
2009; Smith & Henderson,
2009). However, Bays and Husain (
2012) observed O-IOR in both free viewing and visual search, and the effect was larger in free viewing. Farrell and colleagues (
2010) reported that O-IOR is sensitive to environmental statistics: when more return saccades were required, the effect of O-IOR was weaker. These studies suggest that task may modulate the strength of O-IOR, but the nature of this modulation is far from clear.