Stimulus Properties 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

Duration: 2 weeks

What You Need to Know Before You Apply

What is the purpose of this trial?

The trial aims to explore how the human brain decides what to pay attention to visually. Researchers seek to understand how people focus on important stimuli, like a bright light, while ignoring distractions. Participants will view screens with various shapes and colors to assess how quickly they can identify certain features, even amidst distractions. This research could aid in understanding and treating conditions like schizophrenia and Alzheimer's, which affect visual information processing. Individuals with normal or corrected vision who often need to visually distinguish important objects might be well-suited for this trial. As an unphased trial, this study offers participants the chance to contribute to foundational research that could lead to breakthroughs in understanding visual attention and related conditions.

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 protocol is safe for participants?

Research shows that treatments using visual search tasks are generally safe for participants. Studies have found that people handle these tasks well, which involve looking at screens and describing what they see. Reports of harmful side effects do not exist, as these tasks mainly involve noticing and responding to things like colors, shapes, or movement.

These visual tasks help researchers understand how people focus on different things they see. They allow scientists to learn more about how the brain works without causing harm to participants. Overall, this type of research is safe and does not involve physical risks. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

Why are researchers excited about this trial?

Researchers are excited about this trial because it explores how we process visual information in a way that's different from current methods. Unlike traditional approaches that focus on general visual attention, this trial investigates the specific role of feature dimension maps, like color, motion, and shape, in visual cognition. By probing these unique aspects, the trial aims to uncover new insights into how our brains identify and locate objects in complex visual environments, potentially leading to advanced techniques in improving visual attention and cognitive processing.

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

Research has shown that the brain uses 'priority maps' to decide what to focus on. These maps help by considering how much something stands out (salience) and its importance (relevance). In this trial, participants will complete a visual search task to explore these concepts. Studies have found that during a visual search, attention is influenced by the similarity between the target and surrounding items, known as distractors. Even if a distractor appears different, it can still impact the effectiveness of finding the target. Understanding these interactions helps explain how the brain selects focus, which could aid in diagnosing or treating conditions like schizophrenia or Alzheimer's disease that affect visual attention. ^{2 6 7 8 9}

Who Is on the Research Team?

Tommy C Sprague

Principal Investigator

University of California, Santa Barbara

Are You a Good Fit for This Trial?

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

My vision is normal or corrected to normal.

Exclusion Criteria

Not applicable.

Timeline for a Trial Participant

Screening

Participants are screened for eligibility to participate in the trial

1-2 weeks

Treatment

Participants complete a visual search task involving unique target items based on specific feature dimensions

2 weeks

Multiple sessions

Follow-up

Participants are monitored for safety and effectiveness after treatment

2 weeks

What Are the Treatments Tested in This Trial?

Interventions

• Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition

Trial Overview The study tests how the presence of distracting stimuli and cues about location relevance affect our ability to focus on salient objects. It involves looking at colored shapes or moving dots and reporting details like line orientation, with response times being measured.

How Is the Trial Designed?

Group I: Manipulations of Relevant Locations (Expt 3.1 Pilot) Experimental Treatment 3 Interventions

Participants will complete a visual search task in which they will covertly search for a unique target item based on a specific feature dimension indicated at the start of the experiment (unique color, unique motion direction, unique shape) in an 8 item array. At the beginning of each trial, participants will be visually cued (e.g., an arrowhead around fixation) to the side of the display the target item will appear (left, right, up, down). A proportion of all trials will contain a task-irrelevant, singleton distractor defined in a non-target dimension (e.g., color target and motion distractor)

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

The study supports the feature integration theory (FIT) by demonstrating that detection tasks rely on dimension-specific mechanisms, while localization tasks utilize a more general approach across dimensions.

Results showed that switching between dimensions in detection tasks incurs costs, indicating that different cognitive processes are at play, which reinforces the idea that distinct mechanisms govern parallel and focal attention searches.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Feature integration theory revisited: dissociating feature detection and attentional guidance in visual search. Chan, LK., Hayward, WG.[2009]

The study reveals that feature-based attention (FBA) enhances the brain's response to specific visual stimuli, improving how we process relevant information amidst distractions, as shown by event-related potentials recorded from human participants.

Distinct neural processes occur when processing unattended stimuli that share features with the attended target, indicating that FBA not only boosts responses to the attended attribute but also modulates broader cortical activity related to the feature dimension.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Human feature-based attention consists of two distinct spatiotemporal processes. Gledhill, D., Grimsen, C., Fahle, M., et al.[2019]

The study found that dimension-based attention significantly affects early visual processing, as evidenced by increased reaction times when the target's defining dimension changed, but not when only its features changed.

Neurophysiological data showed increased activity in the dorsal occipital cortex and decreased activity in the left frontopolar cortex, supporting the idea that attention operates on dimensions rather than individual features in the initial stages of visual processing.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Dimension-based attention modulates early visual processing. Gramann, K., Töllner, T., Müller, HJ.[2010]

Visual search performance is influenced by changes in target-defining dimensions rather than specific features, indicating that attention allocation is more sensitive to the overall dimension of stimuli.

Evidence suggests that feature contrast saliency signals are integrated early in the visual processing stage, supporting the idea that the effects of dimension changes occur before the selection of responses.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Dynamic weighting of feature dimensions in visual search: behavioral and psychophysiological evidence. Krummenacher, J., Müller, HJ.[2021]

Citations

1. clinicaltrials.gov clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06733467

Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual ... In this experiment, participants will engage in a series of challenging visual working memory tasks while their eye position is tracked during fMRI scanning. In ...

2. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9483234/

Visual search as an embodied process: The effects of ... Visual search outcomes, such as accuracy, search RT, efficiency, and self-reported confidence level, were not affected by perspective ...

3. sciencedirect.com sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945224001734

Individual differences in visual search: A systematic review ... This systematic review provides an up to date and comprehensive synthesis of the existing literature investigating associations between common indices of ...

4. jov.arvojournals.org jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2783479

Evidence from visual search and sustained attention tasks | JOV We assessed the relationship between target-distractor similarity and attentional performance using both a stimulus-based and psychologically-based measure of ...

5. mdpi.com mdpi.com/2076-328X/13/10/827

The Effects of Visual Complexity and Task Difficulty on ... This cognition behavioral study investigated the cluster separation task and the effects of visual complexity and task difficulty.

6. labvanced.com labvanced.com/content/research/en/blog/2025-02-visual-search-task/

Visual Search Task- A Comprehensive Guide for ... Visual search tasks are a powerful tool in research. This guide explains visual search task designs, the cognitive processes involved (attention, perception ...

7. sciencedirect.com sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S092658052300016X

Visual attention and cognitive process in construction ... This study explores the construction workers' meta-cognitive processes underpinning first target fixations using co-registration of eye movement (EM) and ...

8. 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 ... The investigators rigorously identify ROIs using independent retinotopic mapping and localizer techniques, and use a 'mapping' task to estimate ...

9. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10604666/

The Effects of Visual Complexity and Task Difficulty on the ... This cognition behavioral study investigated the cluster separation task and the effects of visual complexity and task difficulty.