Pupil Diameter Tracks Lapses of Attention

Abstract

Our ability to sustain attention for prolonged periods of time is limited. Studies on the relationship between lapses of attention and psychophysiological markers of attentional state, such as pupil diameter, have yielded contradicting results. Here, we investigated the relationship between tonic fluctuations in pupil diameter and performance on a demanding sustained attention task. We found robust linear relationships between baseline pupil diameter and several measures of task performance, suggesting that attentional lapses tended to occur when pupil diameter was small. However, these observations were primarily driven by the joint effects of time-on-task on baseline pupil diameter and task performance. The linear relationships disappeared when we statistically controlled for time-on-task effects and were replaced by consistent inverted U-shaped relationships between baseline pupil diameter and each of the task performance measures, such that most false alarms and the longest and most variable response times occurred when pupil diameter was both relatively small and large. Finally, we observed strong linear relationships between the temporal derivative of pupil diameter and task performance measures, which were largely independent of time-on-task. Our results help to reconcile contradicting findings in the literature on pupil-linked changes in attentional state, and are consistent with the adaptive gain theory of locus coeruleus-norepinephrine function. Moreover, they suggest that the derivative of baseline pupil diameter is a potentially useful psychophysiological marker that could be used in the on-line prediction and prevention of attentional lapses.

Short-Term Monocular Deprivation Enhances Physiological Pupillary Oscillations

“…We interpret this by suggesting that the change of visual cortical excitability induced by monocular deprivation [1, 4, 5] results in behavioral changes both during visual stimulation (as measured by binocular rivalry) and during rest (as indexed by pupillary oscillations). The tight correlation between psychophysics and pupillometry agrees with a growing body of literature showing that changes of cortical excitability can be accurately tracked by the variations of pupil size over time [21, 22] and our findings specifically agree with the observation that the change of pupil size (i.e., the first derivative of pupil diameter over time) is a better predictor than the raw pupil diameter [26, 54]. One limitation of the current study is the relatively small sample size ( n = 10); even though the correlation between the change in pupillary hippus and ocular dominance is strong (Rho = 0.95), further experimental work is needed to confirm this result in a larger sample of participants.…”

Tonic noradrenergic activity modulates explorative behavior and attentional set shifting: Evidence from pupillometry and gaze pattern analysis

“…In accordance with this idea, mental fatigue, inattentiveness, and mind wandering are often associated with small pupil dilation (Hopstaken et al, 2015a(Hopstaken et al, , 2015bUnsworth & Robison, 2015van den Brink, Murphy, & Nieuwenhuis, 2016). Note, however, that in the above studies mental fatigue is also associated with erratic performance (Hopstaken et al, 2015a(Hopstaken et al, , 2015b, mind wandering (Unsworth & Robison, 2016), and slow reaction times (van den Brink et al, 2016;Unsworth & Robison, 2015). In contrast, in our study, the decrease of pupil size was associated with errorless performance and a speed-up of reaction times.…”

Coupling of respiration and attention via the locus coeruleus: Effects of meditation and pranayama

“…Importantly, high RTV is present more so in TBI patients with focal frontal lesions as opposed to nonfrontal lesions (Stuss, Murphy, Binns, & Alexander, ). RTV also covaries with LC tonic firing rate (Usher et al, ) and prestimulus pupil diameter (Murphy et al, ; van den Brink, Murphy, & Nieuwenhuis, ) in simple target detection tasks.…”