With a few of your help I was able to get the jquery I wanted to work flawlessly, except for one thing.. the animation doesn't stop when i click on the buttons.

Scenario:
I have an Image, and 3 buttons underneath labeled "1","2", and "3". The jquery will automate the click function every 4500ms and switch from 1 to 2, then 2 to 3 and continuously loop. However the problem is, if I manually click on a 1,2,3 button the animation does not stop.

Any ideas how I could accomplish this?

jQuery:

var tabs;
var len;
var index = 1;
var robot;

function automate() {
    tabs.eq((index%len)).trigger('click');
    index++;
}

robot = setInterval(automate, 5500);

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
    jQuery(".imgs").hide();
    jQuery(".img_selection a").click(function(){
        stringref = this.href.split('#')[1];
        $(".img_selection a[id$=_on]").removeAttr('id');
        this.id = this.className + "_on";
        jQuery('.imgs').hide();
        if (jQuery.browser.msie && jQuery.browser.version.substr(0,3) == "6.0") {
            jQuery('.imgs#' + stringref).show();
        } else
            jQuery('.imgs#' + stringref).fadeIn();
        return false;
    });
    $('.img_selection a').removeAttr('id').eq(0).trigger('click');
    tabs = jQuery(".img_selection a");
    len = tabs.size();
}); 

I tried adding the below code, with a lot of help from this website, but to no avail..

CODE:

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
    jQuery(".imgs").hide().click(function(){
        clearInterval(robot);
    });

HTML:

<!-- TOP IMAGE ROTATION -->
    <div id="upper_image">
        <div id="img1" class="imgs">
            <p><img src="images/top_image.jpg" width="900" height="250" alt="The Ratio - Print Projects!" border="0" /></p>
        </div>
         <div id="img2" class="imgs">
            <p><img src="images/top_image2.jpg" width="900" height="250" alt="The Ratio - In The Works!" border="0" /></p>
        </div>
        <div id="img3" class="imgs">
            <p><img src="images/top_image3.jpg" width="900" height="250" alt="The Ratio!" border="0" /></p>
        </div>
        </div>
<!-- / TOP IMAGE ROTATION -->
<!-- TOP IMAGE SELECTION -->
        <ul class="img_selection">
            <li><a id="img1_on" class="img1" href="#img1">1</a></li>
            <li><a class="img2" href="#img2">2</a></li>
            <li><a class="img3" href="#img3">3</a></li>
        </ul>

<!-- / TOP IMAGE SELECTION -->