Participant Information Sheet

What is the purpose of the study?
We are researchers interested in how certain types of experiences co-occur. We would like to understand how shifts in attention are related to unusual perceptual experiences. These are like illusions. The shifts in attention, or tuning-out, may help us to understand why some people more than others have unusual perceptual experiences.
 
Why have I been invited to take part?
We are interested in hearing from a wide variety of people. We would like to hear from people who are aged between 18 and 35 years old. There are no other requirements for taking part in this study.
 
Do I have to take part?
You are under no obligation to take part and you will not experience any loss of benefit or penalty if you choose not to participate. This means it is up to you whether or not you take part.
 
What will I have to do?
For this study, all the measures will be placed online. This means that you are able to complete the study in your own time. For this phase of the study, you will be asked to complete a series of questionnaires which will take you around 15 to 20 minutes. We will ask you some questions about yourself including about your physical and mental health, recreational drug use in the last 3 months, how you feel in general and how well connected to others you feel. These questions help us to understand who you are and provide context for the other questions we will ask you. You will be asked some questions about tuning-out experiences you may encounter in your day to day life, how you feel about the experiences you may have had, how you feel in yourself and what your sleep patterns are like. Some questions we ask will be about daydreaming and mind wandering. We will also ask you questions about unusual perceptual experiences you may have had, these will include things you may have felt, seen or heard. Some of these questions may seem unusual, but they are describing experiences people in the general population have reported. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. Try not to think about them for too long, go with your gut responses.
 
These questions make up the baseline measures of a longer study. You can complete just the baseline measures here or you can continue and complete the other elements of the study. We will ask you for your email so that we can contact you about the longer study. In the longer study we will ask you complete a few questions about tuning-out, day-dreaming, how you feel and have slept on four occasions. We will email you invitations as a reminder when to complete the measures on the four occasions. These follow ups will only take 10 minutes each. To link these together we will use your email address so it is important that you use the same email address each time. Remember you can do the current questions and not provide an email address for the other element of research.
 
What are the possible disadvantages/risks in taking part?
Other than the time it will take you to complete the questions there are no disadvantages to taking part in the study. Some of the questions ask about experiences which you may have not spoken about before. This could be equally as confronting or interesting for different people. Most people find this type of research interesting. If you have any questions about the research please feel free to get in touch with Emma on emma.barkus@northumbria.ac.uk
However, if you do experience some distress when completing the measures and would like to get in touch with some independent organisations for advice or guidance, please consider the list below. A list of helplines, charities and services:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/mental-health-helplines/

Kooth provides anonymous online support for mental well-being regardless of location:
https://www.kooth.com/

My Black Dog provides online support to adults experiencing mental health difficulties regardless of location:
https://www.myblackdog.co/

Will my taking part be kept confidential and anonymous?
Yes. You have provided us with your email. It is important that you use the same email here. Emma will link the different time points of data together using the email address that you provide us. Once the data has been linked together, your email address will be removed and you will only be identified through a participant code. The email addresses and participant codes will be kept separately, this will be destroyed once the information has been written up for publication.

How will my data be stored?
The data is being collected on SurveyMonkey, while the study is on-going your data will be stored here. When the data collection is complete your information will be stored on password protected files within the university network using OneDrive. Only Emma will have access to your email addresses, other researchers will only access the data once the email addresses have been removed. The complete data, where participants are identified by number only, will be stored on the Open Science Framework for other researchers to use. This will only happen once the papers from these studies have been published and no one person will be identifiable from the information we collect.

What will happen to the results of the study?
As mentioned above, the results will likely be presented at a conference and published in a journal, but no one individual participants will be able to be identified from the way information is presented. All information and data gathered during this research will be stored in line with the Data Protection Act and in line with Open Data policies, de-identified data may be held indefinitely, but at no point will your personal information or data be revealed.

Who is funding the study?
The present research project has received funding from the British Academy.
Who has reviewed the study?
This study and its protocol have received full ethical approval from Northumbria University College of Reviewers (reference number: 4824). If you require confirmation of this, or if you have any concerns or worries concerning this research, or if you wish to register a complaint, please contact the relevant Ethics Chair, Prof. Nick Neave on nick.neave@northumbria.ac.uk.

How can I withdraw from the project?
During the study itself, you are free to stop your participation at any point by closing your browser and the research team will remove your answers. After you have completed the research, you can still withdraw your data by contacting Emma on emma.barkus@northumbria.ac.uk within 2 weeks of participation, if you have provided us with your email address. If you did not provide your email address your responses are completely anonymous and cannot be withdrawn after you have completed the study. After the results have been published, it will not be possible for any participants to withdraw their data because the link between participant number and email will have been destroyed.

What happens if there is a problem?
If you are unhappy about anything during or after your participation, you should contact the Emma in the first instance. If you feel this is not appropriate, you should contact: Nick Neave on nick.neave@northumbria.ac.uk

Contact for further information:
Main Contact Researcher name and email: Dr. Emma Barkus emma.barkus@northumbria.ac.uk

P.S.: This survey contains credits to get free survey responses at SurveySwap.io and SurveyCircle on the Debrief. 

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