Salience Level for Visual Attention

Age: 18 - 65

Sex: Any

Trial Phase: Academic

Sponsor: University of California, Santa Barbara

No Placebo Group All trial participants will receive the active study treatment (no placebo)

Compensation: Varies

Number of Visits: Unknown

What You Need to Know Before You Apply

What is the purpose of this trial?

This trial explores how the brain decides where to look when viewing a scene, such as finding Waldo in a "Where's Waldo" game. Researchers aim to understand how certain brain regions map out important areas based on features like color or motion, known as Feature Dimension Maps. Participants will watch images on a screen while researchers track their gaze to learn how the brain processes these visual cues. This research could enhance understanding of how the visual system functions in healthy individuals. Candidates with normal vision, with or without glasses or contacts, might be a good fit. As an unphased study, this trial offers a unique opportunity to contribute to foundational research on visual processing.

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 prior data suggests that this method is safe for participants?

Previous studies have shown that the brain uses 'feature dimension maps' to focus on important visual details, such as color or motion. This mechanism helps guide attention in scenes with many distractions. The treatment in this trial involves observing different visual patterns to understand how these brain areas function.

There are no specific safety concerns with this treatment, as it primarily involves watching visual patterns and tracking eye movements. To date, no negative effects have been reported from this type of research. Participants will simply view images on a screen, which is a normal and safe activity. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

Why are researchers excited about this trial?

Researchers are excited about the trial examining Feature Dimension Maps for visual attention because it explores how manipulating visual features like color and motion can enhance attention. Unlike standard methods that may not focus on feature contrast, this approach aims to make certain stimuli more noticeable by adjusting their visual properties. This could lead to a deeper understanding of how visual attention can be optimized, potentially informing new ways to help individuals with attention-related challenges.

What evidence suggests that this trial's treatments could be effective for visual attention?

Research has shown that certain areas in the brain help focus on visual stimuli by acting as 'feature maps.' These maps can identify important spots based on attributes like color or movement. For example, if something bright red appears against a dull background, the brain's color map might highlight it as significant. This trial will explore how manipulating the salience of features, such as color or motion direction, affects visual attention. Studies suggest that these feature maps guide attention by making standout features more noticeable, thus aiding in locating specific targets. ^{5 6 7 8 9}

Who Is on the Research Team?

Tommy Sprague

Principal Investigator

University of California, Santa Barbara

Are You a Good Fit for This Trial?

This trial is for individuals aged 18 to 55 with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. It's designed to explore how people focus their attention on different parts of a visual scene, like finding Waldo in a busy picture.

Inclusion Criteria

My vision is normal or corrected to normal.

Exclusion Criteria

N/A

Timeline for a Trial Participant

Screening

Participants are screened for eligibility to participate in the trial

1 week

Experimental Manipulation

Participants view stimuli with varying feature salience based on color, motion, or luminance contrast. Eye-tracking data is collected to analyze gaze positions.

1 week

Daily sessions

Follow-up

Participants are monitored for any additional data collection or analysis post-experiment.

1 week

What Are the Treatments Tested in This Trial?

Interventions

• Feature Dimension Maps

Trial Overview The study tests how the brain identifies important locations in a visual scene based on feature types such as color or motion. Participants will view stimuli while eye-tracking data is collected to analyze where they look and how salient features capture their attention.

How Is the Trial Designed?

Group I: Manipulations of graded feature salience (Expt 1.1) Experimental Treatment 2 Interventions

Participants will view stimuli made salient based on feature contrast in one feature dimensions (color or motion direction; or checkerboard luminance contrast). The degree to which a location is salient will be manipulated based on the feature contrast across multiple values

Who Is Running the Clinical Trial?

University of California, Santa Barbara

Lead Sponsor

Trials

33

Recruited

3,100+

National Eye Institute (NEI)

Collaborator

Trials

572

Recruited

1,320,000+

Published Research Related to This Trial

Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention (TVA) can be effectively used to quantitatively measure the salience of visual features, which helps in understanding how differences between objects and their surroundings capture attention.

Through four experiments, including orientation pop-out displays and luminance assessments, the study demonstrates that TVA can be applied to various types of stimuli, enhancing our ability to analyze salience effects in visual attention research.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Fast and Conspicuous? Quantifying Salience With the Theory of Visual Attention. Krüger, A., Tünnermann, J., Scharlau, I.[2020]

This study provides evidence that specific regions in the human visual cortex act as 'feature dimension maps' that prioritize locations based on distinct visual features, such as color or motion, using fMRI to analyze brain activation patterns.

The results show a double dissociation where color-selective regions highlight color-defined salient locations while motion-selective regions do the same for motion-defined salience, supporting the idea that the brain processes different visual features independently to guide attention.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Feature-Specific Salience Maps in Human Cortex. Thayer, DD., Sprague, TC.[2023]

Citations

1. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10727177/

Feature-Specific Salience Maps in Human Cortex - PMC Priority map theory is a leading framework for understanding how various aspects of stimulus displays and task demands guide visual attention.

2. withpower.com withpower.com/trial/salience-level-for-visual-attention-744b5

Salience Level for Visual Attention · Info for Participants This study provides evidence that specific regions in the human visual cortex act as 'feature dimension maps' that prioritize locations based on distinct visual ...

3. sciencedirect.com sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921011356

An awareness-dependent mapping of saliency in the ... We found a graded distribution of salience with awareness, changing to a non-graded distribution without awareness.

4. biorxiv.org biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.29.534828v1.full

Feature-specific salience maps in human cortex Computational theories suggest that priority maps identify salient locations based on individual feature dimensions (e.g., color, motion), which ...

5. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5511869/

Characterizing the effects of feature salience and top-down ... We report additive effects of attention and bottom-up salience in early visual areas, suggesting that salience enhancement is not contingent on the observer's ...

6. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6633574/

Visual Saliency Computations: Mechanisms, Constraints, and ... The primate visual system continuously selects spatial proscribed regions, features or objects for further processing.

7. trialx.com trialx.com/clinical-trials/listings/289789/probing-the-role-of-feature-dimension-maps-in-visual-cognition-impact-of-salience-level-expt-11/

Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition ... Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition: Impact of Salience Level (Expt 1.1) · Overview. How does one know what to look at in a scene?

8. clinicaltrials.gov clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06733467

Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual ... The goal of this study is to determine how brain regions that respond strongly to different feature types (color and motion) and which encode spatial locations ...

9. jov.arvojournals.org jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2193531

Saliency, attention, and visual search: An information theoretic ... In this context, the combined pooling of the basic feature maps is referred to as the saliency map. Saliency in this context then refers to the output of an ...