Healthy
Conditions
Keywords
attention, visual search
Brief summary
In this line of research, the researchers are examining the influence of relevance of a salient item on task performance, depending on overall task set.
Detailed description
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, the researchers investigate these interactions in a basic science study when participants perform an easy task or a difficult search task.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALRelevance (Likelihood Salient Item is Target)
The proportion of trials, when the salient visual item is present in the array, where the salient item is the search target.
Sponsors
Lehigh University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Intervention 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).
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 99 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* normal or corrected to normal visual acuity, normal color vision
Exclusion criteria
\-
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Button Press Reaction Time | During Testing (single day) | 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 |
| Button Press Accuracy | During Testing (single day) | Accuracy of responses to target item- the researchers will measure whether the participants presses the correct button which corresponds to the target shape presented on the computer screen or the incorrect button |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed