Informed consent for studies on visual information

Please read this information on potential risk, privacy, and data handling before you consent to your participation in the study by clicking the button at the end of this page. A detailed Instruction for the task you are asked to perform is displayed on the next pages. Dear Madam/Sir, We invite you to take part in our study. In the following paragraphs, we will describe the study and how we will handle your data, so that you can decide to freely participate in it or not. If you have further questions concerning this study, feel free to contact the researcher responsible for this study: Dr. Fritz Günther (fritz.guenther@uni-tuebingen.de)

What is the aim of this study?

The aim of the study is to investigate which factors influence our processing of visual stimuli in the form of images.

What is the procedure of this study?

In the present study, you will be presented with pairs of images that are presented one after another. Your task is to indicate whether the two images are identical or not. You will see a total of 272 such pairs, and the study is expected to take about 15 minutes. After completing the study, you will receive a completion code to confirm your participation for Prolific.

Is your participation voluntary?

Yes, your participation in this study is entirely voluntary, and you can decide not to participate without experiencing any negative consequences.

Do you have to complete the study?

No, your choice to take part in the research is entirely voluntary. You are completely free to choose not to participate, or to withdraw from the study at any moment without any consequence, and without providing any justification for this decision. If you cannot complete the experiment or decide to quit the study, you can contact us for partial payment depending on the time you already spent working on the study.

What are the advantages of participating in this study?

For participants: You get an insight into the psychological research on visual information and visual processing, and help to advance this field of research. If you are interested, feel free to contact us for further information about this field in general or our study in particular. For others: This study aims at providing insights on visual information and visual processing, which will be a valuable addition to this field of research.

What are the risks and disadvantages of participating in this study?

The study only exposes participants to risks comparable to everyday life activities (i.e., perceiving images from the surrounding environment). We were careful to avoid graphically explicit sexual or violent images in our study. However, since there is always the potential that some words might evoke negative reactions in some participants, you can decide not to participate in the study, or to quit your participation at any time.

WARNING!

In this study, colored images and patterns will be presented in extremely rapid succession. If the rapid succession of visual stimuli might have negative consequences for your well-being or your health (for example, if you have a history of epilepy), we ask you not to take part in this experiment.

What is the reimbursement for participating in this study?

For your participation in this 15-minute study, you will receive a reimbursement of £1.88, which corresponds to a rate of £7.50 per hour.

Insurance coverage/ requirements for participants

Not applicable

Privacy and data handling

Your data will be saved alongside your Prolific ID on a server hosted by the University of Tübingen, and thus independently from the Prolific platform. The server is protected with a password, and only accessible to the researcher responsible for this study (Dr. Fritz Günther). As a consequence, your data cannot be connected to any personal information other than collected during the study, and we have no access to any personal information other than collected during the study. If the data collected during this study is used for any scientific publication, it will be permanently published on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/) in anonymized form, and connected to the publication. For this purpose, the Prolific ID will be replaced with a randomly generated code that will not be connected to the Prolific ID. This means that your Prolific ID will never be published. If the data collected during this study is not used for any scientific publication, it will be stored on the server hosted by the University of Tübingen for a maximum duration if 10 years. If you do not want your data saved, you can quit the study at any point without disadvantages. Data collected during this study will only be saved upon completion of the study. Further, you can request the deletion of your data as long as it is not published; after publication, deletion of the anonymized data is no longer possible. However, at this point your locally-saved data including your Prolific ID can still be deleted upon request.