Designing an Attention Control Condition for a Randomized Controlled Trial Using TED Talks

Attention control is an important part of clinical trials, allowing the influence of attention to be parsed from the effects of the intervention. Poor control group design can lead to unintended outcomes, overestimate the effectiveness of an intervention, or threaten a potentially beneficial treatment. The aims of this paper were to describe the development of a novel attention control using TED Talks and provide recommendations for the design of an attention control condition.

Twenty-four TED Talks were selected for inclusion in the control condition. The talks ranged from 6.0 to 19.1 minutes for a total length of 4 hours and 12 minutes (mean = 10 minutes, 30 seconds). Topics included education, technology, health, space, human behavior, sanitation, parenting, cliff climbing, public speaking, happiness, obituaries, procrastination, and age diversity. We then developed 3 to 4 simple questions reflecting the content of the Talk. Responses ranged from true/false to 4 multiple-choice answers. Four to five videos were selected for each attention control session and bundled to create an approximately 90-minute attention control condition to match the intervention (acupuncture) session (45 minutes × 10 sessions).

We developed an attention control condition that met crucial requirements of (1) equivalent attention to that of the experimental group, (2) a design that can hold the participant's interest, (3) standardization to avoid potentially confounding outcomes, and (4) the evaluation of expectancy.

Investigators can develop a rigorous attention control condition using TED Talks guided by our protocol.