Neurocognitive mechanisms of adaptive behavior
Principal Investigator: Jiefeng Jiang
Research Team Contact: WooTek Lee
woo-tek-lee@uiowa.edu
319-259-3532
This consent form describes the research study to help you decide if you want to participate. This form provides important information about what you will be asked to do during the study, about the risks and benefits of the study, and about your rights as a research subject.
If you have any questions about or do not understand something in this form, you should ask the research team for more information.
You should discuss your participation with anyone you choose such as family or friends.
Do not agree to participate in this study unless the research team has answered your questions and you decide that you want to be part of this study.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY?
This is a research study. We are inviting you to participate in this research study because you are a healthy adult.
The purpose of this research study is to study human adaptive behavior and its underlying cognitive processes. In the future, this may aid in the development of cognitive training programs to enhance adaptive behavior or to prevent the impairment of adaptive behavior due to aging. This research may also benefit the diagnosis and treatment of disorders in which loss or impairment of adaptive behavior are a marked symptom.
HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL PARTICIPATE?
Approximately 2,000 people will take part in this study conducted by investigators at the University of Iowa.
HOW LONG WILL I BE IN THIS STUDY?
If you agree to take part in this study, your involvement will last from one up to five sessions, depending on the procedures you agreed to participate in. Each session will take between one to three hours, depending on the session type. The time between sessions will range from one day (minimum), to a maximum of one month. This varies, based on your availability and the procedures in which you agree to participate.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN DURING THIS STUDY?
After you choose to participate, you will be directed to the task with instructions shown on the screen as to the task that you are about to perform. The task requires you to respond to visual and/or auditory stimuli by pressing buttons on the keyboard or using a joystick. The stimuli presented to you will be basic shapes, displayed in a purposeful sequence on either side of the screen and to which you will respond as instructed. The task may feature generic, plain pictures of faces or places. The task will involve paying attention to some stimuli, and may also involve ignoring others. We will ask you to respond to the stimuli that you observe in a brief period of time, such as by reporting the orientation of a letter or shape or by indicating a matching stimuli. If applicable, during the course of the task, your eyes should remain fixated on the cross (“+”) in the middle of the screen. This task will require your full attention, and may range in difficulty throughout. You will complete a maximum of 2,000 brief trials over the course of one behavioral testing session. These trials will be divided into several blocks, or groups, of trials. You will be free to take breaks between blocks as frequently or infrequently as you desire, including to go to the restroom or get a drink of water, etc.
DATA STORAGE FOR FUTURE USE
As part of this study, we are obtaining your behavioral data acquired while you are performing the tasks from you. We would like to study your behavioral data acquired while you are performing the tasks from you in the future, after this study is over. Your sample, information, and/or data may be placed in a central repository or other national repositories sponsored by the National Institutes of Health or other Federal agencies. If this happens, it may be stripped of identifiers (such as name, date of birth, address, etc). Other qualified researchers who obtain proper permission may gain access to your sample and/or data for use in approved research studies that may or may not be related to in the purpose of this study.
The tests we might want to use to study your behavioral data may not even exist at this time. Therefore, we are asking for your permission to store your behavioral data so that we can study them in the future. These future studies may provide additional information that will be helpful in understanding human adaptive behavior and how it changes in clinical populations, but it is unlikely that what we learn from these studies will have a direct benefit to you. It is possible that your behavioral data might be used to develop products tests, or discoveries that could be patented and licensed. In some instances, these may have potential commercial value and may be developed by the Investigators, University of Iowa, commercial companies, organizations funding this research, or others that may not be working directly with this research team. However, donors of behavioral data do not retain any property rights to the materials. Therefore, there are no plans to provide financial compensation to you should this occur.
Your data will be stored without any other kind of link that would enable us to identify which sample(s) are yours. Your data will be available for use in future research studies indefinitely and cannot be removed.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS OF THIS STUDY?
You may experience one or more of the risks indicated below from being in this study. In addition to these, there may be other unknown risks, or risks that we did not anticipate, associated with being in this study.
There are no known long-term risks associated with performing behavioral tasks on a computer. Potential risks during participation in the behavioral session include fatigue or boredom.
There is a risk of loss of confidentiality. Measures in place to protect confidentiality are indicated in the ‘What About Confidentiality’ section later in this document.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF THIS STUDY?
You will not benefit from being in this study.
However, the research may help in our understanding of how the brain functions to generate adaptive behaviors, and may provide insights on how aging, brain damage and brain disorders affect executive functions. This information may expand our knowledge of these cognitive processes and may have implications for cognitive training, diagnosis and treatment of future patients.
WILL IT COST ME ANYTHING TO BE IN THIS STUDY?
You will not have any costs for being in this research study.
WILL I BE PAID FOR PARTICIPATING?
You will need to provide your MTurk worker ID by accepting this job in order for us to pay you. Subjects will be compensated at the rate of $10/hour based on anticipated completion time.
WHO IS FUNDING THIS STUDY?
The National Institute of Health (NIH) is funding this research study. This means that the University of Iowa is receiving payments from the NIH to support the activities that are required to conduct the study. No one on the research team will receive a direct payment or increase in salary from the NIH for conducting this study.
WHAT IF I AM INJURED AS A RESULT OF THIS STUDY?
If you are injured or become ill from taking part in this study, medical treatment is available at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
The University of Iowa does not plan to provide free medical care or payment for treatment of any illness or injury resulting from this study unless it is the direct result of proven negligence by a University employee.
If you experience a research-related illness or injury, you and/or your medical or hospital insurance carrier will be responsible for the cost of treatment.
WHAT ABOUT CONFIDENTIALITY?
We will keep your participation in this research study confidential to the extent permitted by law. However, it is possible that other people such as those indicated below may become aware of your participation in this study and may inspect and copy records pertaining to this research. Some of these records could contain information that personally identifies you.
• federal government regulatory agencies,
• auditing departments of the University of Iowa, and
• the University of Iowa Institutional Review Board (a committee that reviews and approves research studies)
IS BEING IN THIS STUDY VOLUNTARY?
Taking part in this research study is completely voluntary. You may choose not to take part at all. If you decide to be in this study, you may stop participating at any time. If you decide not to be in this study, or if you stop participating at any time, you won’t be penalized or lose any benefits for which you otherwise qualify.
WHAT IF I HAVE QUESTIONS?
We encourage you to ask questions. If you have any questions about the research study itself, please contact: Dr. Jiefeng Jiang at 319-335-2406 or through email at jiefeng-jiang@uiowa.edu
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research subject or about research-related injury, please contact the Human Subjects Office, 105 Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, 600 Newton Rd, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242-1098, (319) 335-6564, or e-mail irb@uiowa.edu. General information about being a research subject can be found by clicking “Info for Public” on the Human Subjects Office web site, http://hso.research.uiowa.edu/. To offer input about your experiences as a research subject or to speak to someone other than the research staff, call the Human Subjects Office at the number above.
This Informed Consent Document is not a contract. It is a written explanation of what will happen during the study if you decide to participate. You are not waiving any legal rights by signing this Informed Consent Document. By clicking the “I accept” button, you indicate that this research study has been explained to you, that your questions have been answered, and that you agree to take part in this study. Please keep a copy of this form.
I agree to take part in this study.