The current study used an inhibition of return (IOR) paradigm to investigate the relationship between spatial attention and the magnocellular (M) and parvocellular (P) pathways. By selectively adapting participants to a particular spatial frequency (1 cpd or 12 cpd), we expected to find differences in IOR values depending on how adaptation influenced visual pathway activity. Simple reaction times (RTs) to target onset were relatively equal across adaptation conditions, with RTs to 12 cpd targets longer than RTs to 1 cpd targets. Target spatial frequency differences in IOR were not found. However, overall IOR was greater in the 1 cpd, relative to the 12 cpd adaptation condition and the control condition. These findings suggest adapting the M-pathway using a low spatial frequency affected IOR more than adapting the P-pathway using a high spatial frequency.