An Investigation of Attentional and Inhibitory Processes During Active Visual Search in Humans

University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Eye Movements; Attention; Executive Function

Treatments: Other: Visual tasks

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT06587113

R15EY035056-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

22-1148

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this study is to investigate the finding that there are large individual differences in how participants move their eyes during active visual search. For example, some individuals tend to fixate, that is point their eyes steadily at a single location, for longer than other individuals before moving to another location. This experiment will use behavioral tasks to measure an individual's attentional and inhibitory functioning, and then see how each of these contributes to between-participant variability in eye movement behavior during visual search.

Full description

To accomplish the goal of understanding the source of individual variability in eye movement patterns, each participant will complete three separate tasks. The first task will require participants to find a target and eye movements will be measured to assess individual differences in fixation duration and other types of eye movement behavior. A second task will evaluate attentional functioning over the visual field by requiring participants to detect briefly-presented targets using their peripheral vision. Finally, a third task will assess inhibitory functioning by having participants attempt to stop eye movements after they have been programmed.

Enrollment: 117 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 18-65 years old

Exclusion criteria

• Self-reported history of neurological illness
• Uncorrected vision problems

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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117 participants in 1 patient group

Study Group

Experimental group

Description:

This study examines eye movement behavior using eye-tracking technology. Healthy participants perform three different tasks, including a visual search task, a stop-signal task, and a useful field of view task. Behavioral performance and eye movements are recorded for all tasks.

Treatment:

Other: Visual tasks