Relevance and Salience During Attention Task

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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In this line of research, we are examining the influence of relevance of a salient item on task performance, depending on overall task set.

Detailed Description
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When finding a target item during visual search (looking for a pencil), a salient item can capture attention (your phone flashing from a message). Typical attention studies only examine salient items when shown as distractor during search, to ensure any attention to the items are driven by salience alone. However, the impact of salience may interact with the relevance of the item for the search task (e.g. how likely the salient item is to be the target). Here, we investigate these interactions in a basic science study when participants perform an easy task or a difficult search task.

Official Title
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Relevance and Salience During Attention Task

Conditions
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Healthy

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Relevance (Likelihood Salient Item is Target)


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: normal or corrected to normal visual acuity, normal color vision Exclusion Criteria: -

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years
Maximum Age: 99 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Basic Science
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Interventional Model Description: All participants receive each level of task (easy singleton detection task, hard feature search task) and salient item presence (present, absent during search). Groups differ based on the likelihood of the salient item being the search target when present(0%-100%, in 25% increments).
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: 0% Relevance<br>0% chance of the salient item being the target during visual search task. | Behavioral: Relevance (Likelihood Salient Item is Target)<br>* The proportion of trials, when the salient visual item is present in the array, where the salient item is the search target.<br>|
| Experimental: 25% Relevance<br>25% chance of the salient item being the target during visual search task. | Behavioral: Relevance (Likelihood Salient Item is Target)<br>* The proportion of trials, when the salient visual item is present in the array, where the salient item is the search target.<br>|
| Experimental: 50% Relevance<br>50% chance of the salient item being the target during visual search task. | Behavioral: Relevance (Likelihood Salient Item is Target)<br>* The proportion of trials, when the salient visual item is present in the array, where the salient item is the search target.<br>|
| Experimental: 75% Relevance<br>75% chance of the salient item being the target during visual search task. | Behavioral: Relevance (Likelihood Salient Item is Target)<br>* The proportion of trials, when the salient visual item is present in the array, where the salient item is the search target.<br>|
| Experimental: 100% Relevance<br>100% chance of the salient item being the target during visual search task. | Behavioral: Relevance (Likelihood Salient Item is Target)<br>* The proportion of trials, when the salient visual item is present in the array, where the salient item is the search target.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Button Press Reaction Time | Speed to respond correctly to the target- after participant finds the target shape on a computer screen, they press a button to indicate what shape they see | During Testing (single day) | 
| Button Press Accuracy | Accuracy of responses to target item- we will measure whether the participants presses the correct button which corresponds to the target shape presented on the computer screen or the incorrect button | During Testing (single day) | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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attention, visual search