Stimulus Properties for Visual Attention
Trial Summary
What is the purpose of this trial?
How do we know what's important to look at in the environment? Sometimes, we need to look at objects because they are 'salient' (for example, bright flashing lights of a police car, or the stripes of a venomous animal), while other times, we need to ignore irrelevant salient locations and focus only on locations we know to be 'relevant'. These behaviors are often explained by the use of 'priority maps' which index the relative importance of different locations in the visual environment based on both their salience and relevance. In this research, we aim to understand how these factors interact when determining what's important to look at. Specifically, we are evaluating the extent to which the visual system considers locations that are known to be irrelevant when considering the salience of objects. We're testing the hypothesis that the visual system always computes maps of salient locations within 'feature maps', but that activity from these maps is not read out to guide behavior for task-irrelevant locations. We'll have people look at displays containing colored shapes and/or moving dots and report aspects of the visual stimulus (e.g., orientation of a line within a particular stimulus). We'll measure response times across conditions in which we manipulate the presence/absence of salient distracting stimuli and provide various kinds of cues about the potential relevance of different locations on the screen. The rationale is that by measuring changes in visual search behavior (and thus inferring computations performed on brain representations), we will determine how these aspects of simplified visual environments impact the brain's representation of important object locations. This will support future studies using brain imaging techniques aimed at identifying the neural mechanisms supporting the extraction of salient and relevant locations from visual scenes, which can inform future diagnosis/treatment of disorders which can impact our ability to perform visual search (e.g., schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease).
Will I have to stop taking my current medications?
The trial information does not specify whether you need to stop taking your current medications.
What data supports the effectiveness of the treatment Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition?
Is the treatment for visual attention safe for humans?
How does this treatment for visual attention differ from other treatments?
This treatment is unique because it focuses on dimension-based attention, which modulates early visual processing by enhancing the detection of specific features or dimensions in visual stimuli. Unlike other treatments that may not target these specific mechanisms, this approach aims to improve visual attention by influencing how the brain processes and prioritizes different visual dimensions.345910
Research Team
Tommy C Sprague
Principal Investigator
University of California, Santa Barbara
Eligibility Criteria
This trial is for individuals interested in how we pay attention to important objects in our environment. Participants should be able to look at displays and report on visual stimuli. There are no specific inclusion or exclusion criteria provided, suggesting it may be open to a wide range of volunteers without particular health conditions.Inclusion Criteria
Exclusion Criteria
Timeline
Screening
Participants are screened for eligibility to participate in the trial
Treatment
Participants complete a visual search task involving unique target items based on specific feature dimensions
Follow-up
Participants are monitored for safety and effectiveness after treatment
Treatment Details
Interventions
- Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition
Find a Clinic Near You
Who Is Running the Clinical Trial?
University of California, Santa Barbara
Lead Sponsor
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Collaborator