Basic Science: Visual Attention in Healthy ParticipantsNCT06852534
Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition: Impact of Salience Level (Eye-tracking Follow-up Study)
A study testing Stimulus properties: salience-defining feature and Stimulus properties: magnitude of salience in people with Basic Science: Visual Attention in Healthy Participants and Attention, run by University of California, Santa Barbara at 1 site in United States.
Trial summary
How does one know what to look at in a scene? Imagine a "Where's Waldo" game - it's challenging to find Waldo because there are many 'salient' locations in the picture, each vying for one's attention. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 to 55 yearsHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- Basic Science: Visual Attention in Healthy Participants, Attention
- What is being tested?
- Stimulus properties: salience-defining feature and Stimulus properties: magnitude of salience
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 20 participants
- Where
- 1 siteUnited States
- Study dates
- 22 Nov 2024to 2 Apr 2025
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- Yes, posted in the registrySummary in the doctors' view
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 18 to 55 years
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Adult
Who may be able to join
- between 18 and 55 years of age
- normal or corrected-to-normal vision
Who cannot join
- N/A
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country.
United States1 site
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California, 93117
About this study
Official title: Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition: Expt 1.1 (Behavioral)
How does one know what to look at in a scene? Imagine a "Where's Waldo" game - it's challenging to find Waldo because there are many 'salient' locations in the picture, each vying for one's attention. One can only attend to a small location on the picture at a given moment, so to find Waldo, one needs to direct their attention to different locations. One prominent theory about how one accomplishes this claims that important locations are identified based on distinct feature types (for example, motion or color), with locations most unique compared to the background most likely to be attended. An important component of this theory is that individual feature dimensions (again, color or motion) are computed within their own 'feature maps', which are thought to be implemented in specific brain regions. However, whether and how specific brain regions contribute to these feature maps remains unknown.
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 of visual stimuli extract 'feature dimension maps' based on stimulus properties, including feature contrast. The investigators hypothesize that feature-selective brain regions act as neural feature dimension maps, and thus encode representations of salient location(s) based on their preferred feature dimension. The investigators will collect eye-tracking data while participants view visual stimuli made salient based on different combinations of feature dimensions. From the eye-tracking data, the investigators will construct fixation heat maps on the feature dimensions for all levels of salience, allowing them to connect behavioral data to the latter fMRI dataset. Each participant will freely view the stimuli as they appear on the computer display. Across trials, the investigators will manipulate 1) the 'strength' of the salient locations based on how different the salient stimulus is compared to the background, 2) the number of salient locations, and 3) the feature value(s) used to make each location salient. Altogether, these manipulations will help the investigators fully understand these critical salience computations in the healthy human visual system.
- Being tested
- Stimulus properties: salience-defining feature, Stimulus properties: magnitude of salience
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Stimulus properties: salience-defining featureOther
The feature used to define a salient location will be varied across trials (checkerboard contrast; motion direction; color hue)
Stimulus properties: magnitude of salienceOther
The magnitude of the salient location will be varied across trials independently from salience-defining feature (based on feature contrast)
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Manipulations of graded feature salience (Expt 1.1) | Experimental | 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 Receives: Other: Stimulus properties: salience-defining feature; Other: Stimulus properties: magnitude of salience |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Gaze Position - Probability of Fixation at Salient Position
For each condition, we compute the probability that participants instructed to free-view the display fixate the salient location on the screen (reported for highest contrast condition)
Measured: Through study completion, an average of one week
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted28 Feb 2025
- Study start22 Nov 2024
- Primary completion2 Apr 2025
- Study completion2 Apr 2025
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Posted resultsParticipant flow, outcome measures and adverse events reported by the sponsor.
- Publications (17)Papers the sponsor has linked to this study.
- Other trials for Basic Science: Visual Attention in Healthy ParticipantsStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Enrolment
- 20 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- National Eye Institute (NEI)
- Responsible party
- Sponsor
- Investigators
- Tommy Sprague, Principal investigator, University of California, Santa Barbara
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT06852534
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- 5-24-0700: Expt 1.1 Behavioral
- Other IDs
- R01EY035300
- Status last verified
- Apr 2026
- First submitted
- 24 Feb 2025
- Last updated
- 11 May 2026
- Results posted
- Yes, on ClinicalTrials.gov
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- Yes: Raw eye-tracking data will be shared with researchers immediately upon publication
Publications
Mackey WE, Winawer J, Curtis CE. Visual field map clusters in human frontoparietal cortex. Elife. 2017 Jun 19;6:e22974. doi: 10.7554/eLife.22974.
PubMed 28628004Hallenbeck GE, Sprague TC, Rahmati M, Sreenivasan KK, Curtis CE. Working memory representations in visual cortex mediate distraction effects. Nat Commun. 2021 Aug 5;12(1):4714. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24973-1.
PubMed 34354071Sprague TC, Itthipuripat S, Vo VA, Serences JT. Dissociable signatures of visual salience and behavioral relevance across attentional priority maps in human cortex. J Neurophysiol. 2018 Jun 1;119(6):2153-2165. doi: 10.1152/jn.00059.2018. Epub 2018 Feb 28.
PubMed 29488841Sprague TC, Adam KCS, Foster JJ, Rahmati M, Sutterer DW, Vo VA. Inverted Encoding Models Assay Population-Level Stimulus Representations, Not Single-Unit Neural Tuning. eNeuro. 2018 Jun 5;5(3):ENEURO.0098-18.2018. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0098-18.2018. eCollection 2018 May-Jun. No abstract available.
PubMed 29876523Sprague TC, Boynton GM, Serences JT. The Importance of Considering Model Choices When Interpreting Results in Computational Neuroimaging. eNeuro. 2019 Dec 20;6(6):ENEURO.0196-19.2019. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0196-19.2019. Print 2019 Nov/Dec.
PubMed 31772033Laumann TO, Gordon EM, Adeyemo B, Snyder AZ, Joo SJ, Chen MY, Gilmore AW, McDermott KB, Nelson SM, Dosenbach NU, Schlaggar BL, Mumford JA, Poldrack RA, Petersen SE. Functional System and Areal Organization of a Highly Sampled Individual Human Brain. Neuron. 2015 Aug 5;87(3):657-70. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.06.037. Epub 2015 Jul 23.
PubMed 26212711Allen EJ, St-Yves G, Wu Y, Breedlove JL, Prince JS, Dowdle LT, Nau M, Caron B, Pestilli F, Charest I, Hutchinson JB, Naselaris T, Kay K. A massive 7T fMRI dataset to bridge cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Nat Neurosci. 2022 Jan;25(1):116-126. doi: 10.1038/s41593-021-00962-x. Epub 2021 Dec 16.
PubMed 34916659Fedorenko E. The early origins and the growing popularity of the individualsubject analytic approach in human neuroscience. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2021; 40:105-112.
Naselaris T, Allen E, Kay K. Extensive sampling for complete models of individual brains. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2021; 40:45-51.
Poldrack RA. Diving into the deep end: a personal reflection on the MyConnectome study. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2021; 40:1-4.
Pritschet L, Taylor CM, Santander T, Jacobs EG. Applying dense-sampling methods to reveal dynamic endocrine modulation of the nervous system. Curr Opin Behav Sci. 2021 Aug;40:72-78. doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.01.012. Epub 2021 Feb 25.
PubMed 35369044Gratton C, Nelson SM, Gordon EM. Brain-behavior correlations: Two paths toward reliability. Neuron. 2022 May 4;110(9):1446-1449. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.04.018.
PubMed 35512638Smith PL, Little DR. Small is beautiful: In defense of the small-N design. Psychon Bull Rev. 2018 Dec;25(6):2083-2101. doi: 10.3758/s13423-018-1451-8.
PubMed 29557067Sprague TC, Serences JT. Attention modulates spatial priority maps in the human occipital, parietal and frontal cortices. Nat Neurosci. 2013 Dec;16(12):1879-87. doi: 10.1038/nn.3574. Epub 2013 Nov 10.
PubMed 24212672Itthipuripat S, Vo VA, Sprague TC, Serences JT. Value-driven attentional capture enhances distractor representations in early visual cortex. PLoS Biol. 2019 Aug 9;17(8):e3000186. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000186. eCollection 2019 Aug.
PubMed 31398186
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 11 May 2026. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition: Expt 1.1 (Behavioral)
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT06852534
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- 5-24-0700: Expt 1.1 Behavioral
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 20 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- University of California, Santa BarbaraUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- National Eye Institute (NEI)
- Study start
- 22 Nov 2024 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 2 Apr 2025 (actual)
- Study completion
- 2 Apr 2025 (actual)
- First posted
- 28 Feb 2025 (actual)
- Results
- Posted 11 May 2026
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
How does one know what to look at in a scene? Imagine a "Where's Waldo" game - it's challenging to find Waldo because there are many 'salient' locations in the picture, each vying for one's attention. One can only attend to a small location on the picture at a given moment, so to find Waldo, one needs to direct their attention to different locations. One prominent theory about how one accomplishes this claims that important locations are identified based on distinct feature types (for example, motion or color), with locations most unique compared to the background most likely to be attended. An important component of this theory is that individual feature dimensions (again, color or motion) are computed within their own 'feature maps', which are thought to be implemented in specific brain regions. However, whether and how specific brain regions contribute to these feature maps remains unknown.
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 of visual stimuli extract 'feature dimension maps' based on stimulus properties, including feature contrast. The investigators hypothesize that feature-selective brain regions act as neural feature dimension maps, and thus encode representations of salient location(s) based on their preferred feature dimension. The investigators will collect eye-tracking data while participants view visual stimuli made salient based on different combinations of feature dimensions. From the eye-tracking data, the investigators will construct fixation heat maps on the feature dimensions for all levels of salience, allowing them to connect behavioral data to the latter fMRI dataset. Each participant will freely view the stimuli as they appear on the computer display. Across trials, the investigators will manipulate 1) the 'strength' of the salient locations based on how different the salient stimulus is compared to the background, 2) the number of salient locations, and 3) the feature value(s) used to make each location salient. Altogether, these manipulations will help the investigators fully understand these critical salience computations in the healthy human visual system.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 1
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Manipulations of graded feature salience (Expt 1.1) | Experimental | Other: Stimulus properties: salience-defining feature, Other: Stimulus properties: magnitude of salienceParticipants 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 may qualify
- Ages
- 18 to 55 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Adult
Key inclusion criteria (2 listed)
- between 18 and 55 years of age
- normal or corrected-to-normal vision
Key exclusion criteria (1 listed)
- N/A
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Stimulus properties: salience-defining featureThe feature used to define a salient location will be varied across trials (checkerboard contrast; motion direction; color hue) | Other | Manipulations of graded feature salience (Expt 1.1) |
| Stimulus properties: magnitude of salienceThe magnitude of the salient location will be varied across trials independently from salience-defining feature (based on feature contrast) | Other | Manipulations of graded feature salience (Expt 1.1) |
Primary outcome
Gaze Position - Probability of Fixation at Salient Position
Time frame: Through study completion, an average of one week
For each condition, we compute the probability that participants instructed to free-view the display fixate the salient location on the screen (reported for highest contrast condition)
Results and safety
Loading the posted results from ClinicalTrials.gov…
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 11 May 2026.
- Posted resultsParticipant flow, baseline, all outcome measures and adverse events.
- Background: PubMed 28628004Mackey WE, Winawer J, Curtis CE. Visual field map clusters in human frontoparietal cortex. Elife. 2017 Jun 19;6:e22974. doi: 10.7554/eLife.22974.
- Background: PubMed 34354071Hallenbeck GE, Sprague TC, Rahmati M, Sreenivasan KK, Curtis CE. Working memory representations in visual cortex mediate distraction effects. Nat Commun. 2021 Aug 5;12(1):4714. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24973-1.
- Background: PubMed 29488841Sprague TC, Itthipuripat S, Vo VA, Serences JT. Dissociable signatures of visual salience and behavioral relevance across attentional priority maps in human cortex. J Neurophysiol. 2018 Jun 1;119(6):2153-2165. doi: 10.1152/jn.00059.2018. Epub 2018 Feb 28.
- Background: PubMed 29876523Sprague TC, Adam KCS, Foster JJ, Rahmati M, Sutterer DW, Vo VA. Inverted Encoding Models Assay Population-Level Stimulus Representations, Not Single-Unit Neural Tuning. eNeuro. 2018 Jun 5;5(3):ENEURO.0098-18.2018. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0098-18.2018. eCollection 2018 May-Jun. No abstract available.
- Background: PubMed 31772033Sprague TC, Boynton GM, Serences JT. The Importance of Considering Model Choices When Interpreting Results in Computational Neuroimaging. eNeuro. 2019 Dec 20;6(6):ENEURO.0196-19.2019. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0196-19.2019. Print 2019 Nov/Dec.
- Background: PubMed 26212711Laumann TO, Gordon EM, Adeyemo B, Snyder AZ, Joo SJ, Chen MY, Gilmore AW, McDermott KB, Nelson SM, Dosenbach NU, Schlaggar BL, Mumford JA, Poldrack RA, Petersen SE. Functional System and Areal Organization of a Highly Sampled Individual Human Brain. Neuron. 2015 Aug 5;87(3):657-70. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.06.037. Epub 2015 Jul 23.
- Background: PubMed 34916659Allen EJ, St-Yves G, Wu Y, Breedlove JL, Prince JS, Dowdle LT, Nau M, Caron B, Pestilli F, Charest I, Hutchinson JB, Naselaris T, Kay K. A massive 7T fMRI dataset to bridge cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Nat Neurosci. 2022 Jan;25(1):116-126. doi: 10.1038/s41593-021-00962-x. Epub 2021 Dec 16.
- BackgroundFedorenko E. The early origins and the growing popularity of the individualsubject analytic approach in human neuroscience. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2021; 40:105-112.
- BackgroundNaselaris T, Allen E, Kay K. Extensive sampling for complete models of individual brains. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2021; 40:45-51.
- BackgroundPoldrack RA. Diving into the deep end: a personal reflection on the MyConnectome study. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2021; 40:1-4.
- Background: PubMed 35369044Pritschet L, Taylor CM, Santander T, Jacobs EG. Applying dense-sampling methods to reveal dynamic endocrine modulation of the nervous system. Curr Opin Behav Sci. 2021 Aug;40:72-78. doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.01.012. Epub 2021 Feb 25.
- Background: PubMed 35512638Gratton C, Nelson SM, Gordon EM. Brain-behavior correlations: Two paths toward reliability. Neuron. 2022 May 4;110(9):1446-1449. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.04.018.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: Yes. Raw eye-tracking data will be shared with researchers immediately upon publication
Related trials for Basic Science: Visual Attention in Healthy Participants
Enrolling by invitation
Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition: Impact of Task Demands and Spatial Attention (Expt 2.2)
Basic Science: Visual Attention in Healthy Participants, Basic Science: Neural Representations of Location
Enrolling by invitation
Probing the Role of Feature Dimension Maps in Visual Cognition: Manipulations of Relevant Locations on Salience Processing? (Expt 3.1 Pilot)
Basic Science: Visual Attention in Healthy Participants, Attention
Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
Tommy Sprague principal investigator
University of California, Santa Barbara
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Stimulus properties: salience-defining feature and Stimulus properties: magnitude of salience in people with Basic Science: Visual Attention in Healthy Participants and Attention, run by University of California, Santa Barbara at 1 site in United States.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 2 inclusion and 1 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 11 May 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
Yes. Results are posted in the registry (first posted 11 May 2026). A summary is in the For doctors view, and the full results are on ClinicalTrials.gov.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Gaze Position - Probability of Fixation at Salient Position (time frame: Through study completion, an average of one week). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT06852534, which also lists 17 linked publications.
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 11 May 2026.