Pupil size as a gateway into conscious interpretation of brightness

Sperandio, Irene, Bond, Nikki and Binda, Paola (2018) Pupil size as a gateway into conscious interpretation of brightness. Frontiers in Neurology, 9. ISSN 1664-2295

Preview

PDF (Published manuscript) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Although retinal illumination is the main determinant of pupil size, evidence indicates that extra-retinal factors, including attention and contextual information, also modulate the pupillary response. For example, stimuli that evoke the idea of brightness (e.g., pictures of the sun) induce pupillary constriction compared to control stimuli of matched luminance. Is conscious appraisal of these stimuli necessary for the pupillary constriction to occur? Participants' pupil diameter was recorded while sun pictures and their phase-scrambled versions were shown to the left eye. A stream of Mondrian patterns was displayed to the right eye to produce continuous flash suppression, which rendered the left-eye stimuli invisible on some trials. Results revealed that when participants were aware of the sun pictures their pupils constricted relative to the control stimuli. This was not the case when the pictures were successfully suppressed from awareness, demonstrating that pupil size is highly sensitive to the contents of consciousness.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	pupillometry,pupillary constriction,high-level visual processing,visual awareness,brightness
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Related URLs:	https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	13 Dec 2018 10:30
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2022 04:21
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/69292
DOI:	10.3389/fneur.2018.01070

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item