{"schema_version":1,"assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","source_experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"negative_space_design__cognitive_science","archetype_slug":"negative_space_design","domain_slug":"cognitive_science","title":"Protected Inter-Trial Blank Intervals for Reducing Carryover Confounding","opportunity_summary":"Test whether a minimally cued, bounded blank interval between rapid cognitive-experiment trials reduces preceding-trial dependence and boundary confusion more than either immediate transition or an equally long perceptually active display. The proposal is technically simple and strongly testable, but the frequency and importance of the stated problem, stakeholder demand, realized advantage, and prior-art position are unsupported in the sealed packet.","adopter_authorizer":"The study principal investigator and ethics-approved protocol owner can authorize protocol testing and adoption, subject to ethics review; participants retain consent and withdrawal authority.","scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":3,"rationale":"Reducing carryover contamination could improve the interpretability of trial-level errors, response times, and reported interpretations, but the packet supplies no evidence about prevalence, effect magnitude, or how often conclusions materially change."},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":2,"rationale":"Investigators and participants are identifiable beneficiaries, but the packet contains no reported requests, adoption interest, observed demand, or evidence that transition confounding is a priority for them."},"incremental_advantage":{"score":3,"rationale":"The protected blank has a specific proposed advantage over immediate transition and a duration-matched active mask, yet no result establishes that absence itself improves carryover-sensitive outcomes or offsets added fatigue and expectancy."},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The blank-versus-active-mask contrast makes the incremental claim structurally specific, but prior-art status is explicitly unsearched, so distinctiveness relative to existing inter-trial-interval and carryover-control methods remains unresolved."},"technical_implementability":{"score":5,"rationale":"For computerized experiments, inserting a bounded interval, retaining a minimal cue, randomizing conditions, and recording the named outcomes are straightforward protocol and software changes with explicit rollback."},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":4,"rationale":"A principal investigator and ethics-approved protocol owner have clear authority, and participant consent is preserved; feasibility is reduced by required ethics review, accessibility checks, and study-specific scientific justification."},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"The packet specifies a preregistered within-participant comparison, two relevant baselines, measurable outcomes, alternative explanations, and intervention and problem falsifiers. Timing, stimulus-energy matching, order controls, and analysis thresholds still require prespecification."},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"The intervention is bounded and reversible, with explicit stopping conditions and restoration of the ordinary transition. Safeguards retain consent, withdrawal, emergency, accessibility, and task-critical information, although confusion and fatigue remain possible."},"scalability":{"score":4,"rationale":"A software-defined transition can be replicated inexpensively across computerized protocols, but timing and cue design may require task- and population-specific validation to avoid changing genuine sequential cognition or accessibility."}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Design, preregister, obtain ethics approval for, run, and analyze one bounded within-participant pilot comparing immediate transition, minimally cued blank, and duration-matched active-mask conditions.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Uses an existing computerized task and laboratory infrastructure.","Requires participant recruitment and compensation, investigator and analyst labor, protocol programming, accessibility review, and ethics coordination.","Does not include a large multisite sample or development of specialized equipment.","Exact sample size and local labor and participant costs are not supplied."]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"UNDER_10K","scope":"Modify and quality-check one existing computerized protocol after supportive evidence, including configurable timing, cue retention, control visibility, and rollback.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The experiment platform already supports timed screens and event logging.","No new hardware or major software procurement is required.","The estimate excludes the preceding evidence study and assumes only one protocol."]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Launch the validated transition design across a small laboratory program, including protocol amendments, staff training, accessibility checks, task-specific verification, and monitoring.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Launch covers several related computerized studies in one institution.","Each study requires limited validation rather than a new full-scale efficacy trial.","No multisite regulatory or data-integration program is included."]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"UNDER_10K","scope":"Maintain timing configurations, monitor transition-related confusion and adverse responses, and cover modest incremental participant time for a small laboratory program.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Blank intervals add only limited duration to each session.","Study volume is modest and existing staff and software are used.","A high-volume program or materially longer sessions could move recurring costs into a higher band."]}},"research_burden":"MODERATE","earliest_credible_horizon":"3_TO_12_MONTHS","pipeline_gates":{"recognizable_externally_supportable_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"The proposed problem is recognizable through preceding-trial dependence, missed transitions, premature responses, and repeated-instruction requests, and the packet supplies a falsifier; its prevalence and magnitude remain unmeasured."},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"The study principal investigator and ethics-approved protocol owner are explicitly identified as decision authorities, while participant consent and withdrawal authority are preserved."},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The proposal claims that a minimally cued blank will reduce carryover-sensitive outcomes more than both immediate transition and a duration-matched perceptually active display, without unacceptable comprehension or participant costs."},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"A preregistered within-participant three-condition pilot is bounded, names outcomes and comparators, and can falsify both the underlying problem and the intervention advantage."},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"The packet excludes removal of consent, withdrawal, emergency, accessibility, and task-critical information and specifies stopping and rollback rules. Ethics review and participant consent remain required controls rather than unresolved authority gaps."},"implementation_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"The intervention and pilot are sufficiently bounded to assign broad resource bands under explicit assumptions, although missing sample size, study volume, and local resource information make confidence low."}},"blocking_evidence":["Evidence that immediate transitions produce reliable preceding-trial dependence, boundary errors, or transition-comprehension problems after stimulus, motor, fatigue, and order factors are controlled.","Evidence that the minimally cued blank outperforms the duration-matched active-mask condition, rather than merely benefiting from elapsed time, predictability, or a strategy change.","Evidence that any improvement is not offset by worse comprehension, accessibility, distress, withdrawal, session fatigue, or distortion of theoretically meaningful sequential effects.","Prior-art evidence establishing whether blank inter-trial intervals and blank-versus-mask comparisons already address the same incremental claim."],"next_evidence_step":"First conduct a bounded prior-art review of inter-trial intervals, blank-versus-mask comparisons, carryover controls, and temporal-expectation controls; if the exact claim is not already resolved, preregister one within-participant pilot comparing immediate transition, a minimally cued blank, and a duration-matched active mask. Falsify the problem if controlled immediate transitions show no reliable carryover or boundary deficit, and falsify the intervention if the blank does not outperform the active mask or causes unacceptable comprehension, accessibility, distress, or fatigue effects.","research_questions":["Do immediate transitions produce reliable preceding-trial dependence or boundary misunderstanding after controlling stimulus imbalance, motor refractoriness, fatigue, and condition order?","Does a minimally cued blank outperform a duration-matched active display on carryover-sensitive outcomes?","Can variable or otherwise controlled interval timing separate protected absence from temporal expectancy and predictability?","Are observed sequential dependencies nuisance contamination or theoretically meaningful features of the target cognitive process?","Which cue content and interval durations preserve orientation, controls, accessibility, and task comprehension without adding perceptual competition?","How much session extension and fatigue result at realistic trial counts?","Does existing experimental-methods prior art already contain the same intervention, comparison, or causal claim?","Across which tasks and participant populations does the effect replicate without protocol-specific harms?"] ,"recommendation":"PRIOR_ART_RESEARCH","uncertainty_constraints":["Closed-book assessment with no external sources.","Problem prevalence, effect magnitude, stakeholder demand, and realized impact are unmeasured.","Prior-art status is explicitly UNSEARCHED, so novelty and comparative distinctiveness cannot be asserted.","Cost bands are resource-equivalent estimates based only on the bounded protocol description; sample size, labor rates, study volume, and institutional requirements are absent.","The active-mask rival may add interference beyond the absence contrast unless stimulus energy, predictability, and task relevance are carefully matched.","Elapsed time, temporal expectation, strategy change, genuine sequential cognition, motor effects, fatigue, and stimulus imbalance remain competing explanations."],"closed_book_prior_art_boundary":"The sealed packet supports a coherent, reversible, and falsifiable experimental comparison, but it provides no basis for claims about novelty, prevalence, market size, adoption, realized benefit, or superiority over known methods. External prior-art research is required before treating protected inter-trial blank intervals or the blank-versus-mask contrast as distinctive."}