VisionNCT03884985
Eye Movements, Visual Perception and Attention
A study testing Visual stimulation in people with Vision, run by University of Rochester at 1 site in United States.
Trial summary
During visual fixation, small eye movements of which we are usually not aware, prevent the maintenance of a steady direction of gaze. These eye movements are finely controlled and shift retinal projection of objects within the fovea, the region of the retina where visual acuity is highest. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 years and olderHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- Vision
- What is being tested?
- Visual stimulation
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 155 participants
- Where
- 1 siteUnited States
- Study dates
- 1 Jan 2018to 1 Feb 2024
- 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 years and older
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Adult, Older adult
Who may be able to join
- Subjects will be eligible for the study if they:
- Are at least 18 years old
- Speak English
- Have read, understood, and signed the informed consent form Have normal visual acuity (20/20 or better) without correction (i.e. without glasses or contact lenses) and no known visual deficits. A standard visual acuity screening will be performed by means of a Snellen chart (the standard eye chart) at the beginning and the end of the experiments.
Who cannot join
- Subjects will be excluded if they:
- Are under 18 years old
- Cannot understand the experimental procedures Have reported vision loss, including the need for correction (i.e. glasses or contact lenses), or fail the visual acuity screening performed during the experiments. We expect a very minor portion of subjects to be excluded as a result of this test, as the good vision requirement will be clearly stated in our recruitment materials. There will be no data collection for subjects who will not pass the acuity test.
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country.
About this study
During visual fixation, small eye movements of which we are usually not aware, prevent the maintenance of a steady direction of gaze. These eye movements are finely controlled and shift retinal projection of objects within the fovea, the region of the retina where visual acuity is highest. This program of research examines the link between these eye movements and attention, and tests the hypothesis that attention, similarly to eye movements, can be controlled at the foveal level. Psychophysical experiments with human subjects, using state-of-the-art techniques, high resolution eyetracking and retinal stabilization are conducted to address these questions. Gaze-contingent calibration procedures are employed to achieve high accuracy in gaze localization. A custom developed gaze-contingent display is used to shift in real-time visual stimuli on the monitor to compensate for the observer eye movements during fixation periods and to maintain stimuli at a desired location on the retina. Experiments involve visual discrimination/detection tasks with stimuli presented at selected eccentricities within the fovea. Participants' performance and reaction times are examined under different conditions, in which various types of attention are manipulated. In addition to advancing our basic understanding of visual perception, this research leads to a better understanding of attentional control at the foveal scale and of the contribution of microscopic eye movements to the acquisition and processing of visual details.
Read the detailed description
The goals of this study are to the following:
- Examine the resolution and time-course of attention within the foveola. Attentional control has been traditionally studied outside the foveola but the PI's recent work suggests that attentional shifts also play a critical role in the normal examination of fine spatial details. Building on our previous results, we will investigate the extent by which both voluntary and involuntary attention can be controlled at this scale. Specifically, we will (a) measure the resolution of attention, i.e., the minimum distance between two locations within the foveola that can elicit selective voluntary attentional shifts. We will (b) examine whether enhancements in fine spatial vision at selected foveal locations, such as those we have previously shown for voluntary attention, also occur with involuntary attention. Finally we will study (c) the time-course of attentional enhancements and inhibition of return at this scale. Moreover, to study how peripheral and foveal attention differ, we will compare the extent of exogenous attentional effects and their time-course within and outside the foveola.
- Map visual acuity and crowding across the foveola. Our research has shown that vision is not uniform across the foveola: discrimination of fine spatial patterns is already suboptimal just a few arcmins away from the center of gaze. This phenomenon could be caused by a decline in visual acuity outside the preferred retinal locus and/or the consequences of crowding, the negative influence resulting from objects adjacent to the target. Because of the difficulty in precisely controlling retinal stimulation at this scale, it is unclear whether crowding occurs in the foveola, and whether its influence changes with foveal eccentricity. We will measure both visual acuity (a), and crowding (b), and will assess their relative contribution over a range of foveal eccentricities, both nasally and temporally. In addition to examine visual acuity across subjects, we will also examine how it changes at the individual level.
- Link attention, fine spatial vision and oculomotor control. Microsaccades normally shift the retinal projection of the fixated object across the foveola. At a larger scale, visual resolution, attention, and eye movements are tightly coupled. But little is known on whether and how this interplay unfolds within the foveola. Here we will investigate how attention and vision interact with microsaccades preparation and execution. We will examine (a) whether microsaccades preparation yields attentional benefits at specific foveal locations; (b) the precision of microsaccades; (c) their impact in attenuating negative effects of reduced acuity and foveal crowding, and; (d) their impact on performance in natural high acuity tasks.
To address these goals psychophysics experimental paradigms and high-precision eyetracking will be used.
- Conditions
- Vision
- Being tested
- Visual stimulation
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Visual stimulationOther
In the experiments, participants will sit in front of a computer monitor located a less than a meter of distance and will analyze the content of images extracted from collections of natural and computer-generated scenes. Subjects will be asked to report verbally or by pressing keys on a keyboard on image characteristics such as the locations of the objects present in the scenes, their number and/or their identities. Some experiments will involve a search paradigm in which subjects will have to report on the location and/or fine characteristics of a target element among a field of distracting similar elements, and/or visual discrimination tasks. The duration of the interval of time in which the image is maintained on the screen may be varied between few tens of milliseconds to several seconds. In a set of experiments, the eye movements performed by the subjects during the execution of the visual tasks will be recorded as explained below.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Normal Vision | Experimental | This study examines high-acuity vision, oculomotor behavior recorded using high-resolution eyetracking. Healthy participants are asked to perform different types of visual tasks, ranging from letter identification to judging facial expressions while their eye movements will be recorded with high-precision together with their behavioral performance in the task. Receives: Other: Visual stimulation |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Average Performance in Visual Tasks
Proportion correct responses in visual tasks. For each visual stimulus presentation, observers performed a four-alternative forced-choice (4AFC) task. A trial was considered correct if the participant's selected response matched the identity of the presented stimulus; otherwise, it was marked as incorrect.
Measured: Day 0
Microsaccades Rate
rate of microsaccades per second
Measured: Day 0
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted21 Mar 2019
- Study start1 Jan 2018
- Primary completion1 Feb 2024
- Study completion1 Feb 2024
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.
- Other trials for VisionStudies 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
- 155 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- University of Rochester
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- National Eye Institute (NEI)
- Responsible party
- Principal investigator, Martina Poletti, University of Rochester
- Investigators
- Martina Poletti, Ph.D., Principal investigator, University of Rochester
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT03884985
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- RSRB00069578
- Other IDs
- R01EY029788-01
- Status last verified
- Jun 2025
- First submitted
- 20 Mar 2019
- Last updated
- 18 Jun 2025
- Results posted
- Yes, on ClinicalTrials.gov
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- No
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 18 Jun 2025. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Eye Movements, Visual Perception and Attention
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT03884985
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- RSRB00069578
- Conditions
- Vision
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 155 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- University of RochesterUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- National Eye Institute (NEI)
- Study start
- 1 Jan 2018 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 1 Feb 2024 (actual)
- Study completion
- 1 Feb 2024 (actual)
- First posted
- 21 Mar 2019 (actual)
- Results
- Posted 18 Jun 2025
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
During visual fixation, small eye movements of which we are usually not aware, prevent the maintenance of a steady direction of gaze. These eye movements are finely controlled and shift retinal projection of objects within the fovea, the region of the retina where visual acuity is highest. This program of research examines the link between these eye movements and attention, and tests the hypothesis that attention, similarly to eye movements, can be controlled at the foveal level. Psychophysical experiments with human subjects, using state-of-the-art techniques, high resolution eyetracking and retinal stabilization are conducted to address these questions. Gaze-contingent calibration procedures are employed to achieve high accuracy in gaze localization. A custom developed gaze-contingent display is used to shift in real-time visual stimuli on the monitor to compensate for the observer eye movements during fixation periods and to maintain stimuli at a desired location on the retina. Experiments involve visual discrimination/detection tasks with stimuli presented at selected eccentricities within the fovea. Participants' performance and reaction times are examined under different conditions, in which various types of attention are manipulated. In addition to advancing our basic understanding of visual perception, this research leads to a better understanding of attentional control at the foveal scale and of the contribution of microscopic eye movements to the acquisition and processing of visual details.
Detailed description
The goals of this study are to the following:
- Examine the resolution and time-course of attention within the foveola. Attentional control has been traditionally studied outside the foveola but the PI's recent work suggests that attentional shifts also play a critical role in the normal examination of fine spatial details. Building on our previous results, we will investigate the extent by which both voluntary and involuntary attention can be controlled at this scale. Specifically, we will (a) measure the resolution of attention, i.e., the minimum distance between two locations within the foveola that can elicit selective voluntary attentional shifts. We will (b) examine whether enhancements in fine spatial vision at selected foveal locations, such as those we have previously shown for voluntary attention, also occur with involuntary attention. Finally we will study (c) the time-course of attentional enhancements and inhibition of return at this scale. Moreover, to study how peripheral and foveal attention differ, we will compare the extent of exogenous attentional effects and their time-course within and outside the foveola.
- Map visual acuity and crowding across the foveola. Our research has shown that vision is not uniform across the foveola: discrimination of fine spatial patterns is already suboptimal just a few arcmins away from the center of gaze. This phenomenon could be caused by a decline in visual acuity outside the preferred retinal locus and/or the consequences of crowding, the negative influence resulting from objects adjacent to the target. Because of the difficulty in precisely controlling retinal stimulation at this scale, it is unclear whether crowding occurs in the foveola, and whether its influence changes with foveal eccentricity. We will measure both visual acuity (a), and crowding (b), and will assess their relative contribution over a range of foveal eccentricities, both nasally and temporally. In addition to examine visual acuity across subjects, we will also examine how it changes at the individual level.
- Link attention, fine spatial vision and oculomotor control. Microsaccades normally shift the retinal projection of the fixated object across the foveola. At a larger scale, visual resolution, attention, and eye movements are tightly coupled. But little is known on whether and how this interplay unfolds within the foveola. Here we will investigate how attention and vision interact with microsaccades preparation and execution. We will examine (a) whether microsaccades preparation yields attentional benefits at specific foveal locations; (b) the precision of microsaccades; (c) their impact in attenuating negative effects of reduced acuity and foveal crowding, and; (d) their impact on performance in natural high acuity tasks.
To address these goals psychophysics experimental paradigms and high-precision eyetracking will be used.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 1
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Normal Vision | Experimental | Other: Visual stimulationThis study examines high-acuity vision, oculomotor behavior recorded using high-resolution eyetracking. Healthy participants are asked to perform different types of visual tasks, ranging from letter identification to judging facial expressions while their eye movements will be recorded with high-precision together with their behavioral performance in the task. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 18 years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Adult, Older adult
Key inclusion criteria (4 listed)
- Subjects will be eligible for the study if they:
Key exclusion criteria (3 listed)
- Subjects will be excluded if they:
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Visual stimulationIn the experiments, participants will sit in front of a computer monitor located a less than a meter of distance and will analyze the content of images extracted from collections of natural and computer-generated scenes. Subjects will be asked to report verbally or by pressing keys on a keyboard on image characteristics such as the locations of the objects present in the scenes, their number and/or their identities. Some experiments will involve a search paradigm in which subjects will have to report on the location and/or fine characteristics of a target element among a field of distracting similar elements, and/or visual discrimination tasks. The duration of the interval of time in which the image is maintained on the screen may be varied between few tens of milliseconds to several seconds. In a set of experiments, the eye movements performed by the subjects during the execution of the visual tasks will be recorded as explained below. | Other | Normal Vision |
Primary outcome
Average Performance in Visual Tasks
Time frame: Day 0
Proportion correct responses in visual tasks. For each visual stimulus presentation, observers performed a four-alternative forced-choice (4AFC) task. A trial was considered correct if the participant's selected response matched the identity of the presented stimulus; otherwise, it was marked as incorrect.
Microsaccades Rate
Time frame: Day 0
rate of microsaccades per second
Results and safety
Loading the posted results from ClinicalTrials.gov…
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 18 Jun 2025.
- Posted resultsParticipant flow, baseline, all outcome measures and adverse events.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: No
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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.
Martina Poletti, Ph.D. principal investigator
University of Rochester
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Visual stimulation in people with Vision, run by University of Rochester 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 4 inclusion and 3 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 18 Jun 2025. 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 18 Jun 2025). 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?
Average Performance in Visual Tasks (time frame: Day 0). The study lists 2 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
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 18 Jun 2025.