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Pupillometry and the vigilance decrement: Task-evoked but not baseline pupil measures reflect declining performance in visual vigilance tasks

View ORCID ProfileJoel T. Martin, Annalise H. Whittaker, View ORCID ProfileStephen J. Johnston
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.01.470724
Joel T. Martin
1School of Human and Health Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Swansea, Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom
2Department of Psychology, University of York, United Kingdom, YO10 5DD
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  • For correspondence: joel.martin@york.ac.uk
Annalise H. Whittaker
3Dstl, Porton Down, Salisbury SP4 0JQ
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Stephen J. Johnston
1School of Human and Health Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Swansea, Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom
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Abstract

Baseline and task-evoked pupil measures are known to reflect the activity of the nervous system’s central arousal mechanisms. With the increasing availability, affordability and flexibility of video-based eye tracking hardware, these measures may one day find practical application in real-time biobehavioral monitoring systems to assess performance or fitness for duty in tasks requiring vigilant attention. But real-world vigilance tasks are predominantly visual in their nature and most research in this area has taken place in the auditory domain. Here we explore the relationship between pupil size—both baseline and task-evoked—and behavioral performance measures in two novel vigilance tasks requiring visual target detection: 1) a traditional vigilance task involving prolonged, continuous, and uninterrupted performance (n = 28), and 2) a psychomotor vigilance task (n = 25). In both tasks, behavioral performance and task- evoked pupil responses declined as time spent on task increased, corroborating previous reports in the literature of a vigilance decrement with a corresponding reduction in task-evoked pupil measures. Also in line with previous findings, baseline pupil size did not show a consistent relationship with performance measures. We discuss our findings considering the adaptive gain theory of locus coeruleus function and question the validity of the assumption that baseline (prestimulus) pupil size and task-evoked (poststimulus) pupil measures correspond to the tonic and phasic firing modes of the LC.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • The research was funded by a grant from the Dstl

  • https://osf.io/yujw6/?view_only=902f6e591fa34640b2ea12c479f1940b

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted December 02, 2021.
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Pupillometry and the vigilance decrement: Task-evoked but not baseline pupil measures reflect declining performance in visual vigilance tasks
Joel T. Martin, Annalise H. Whittaker, Stephen J. Johnston
bioRxiv 2021.12.01.470724; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.01.470724
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Pupillometry and the vigilance decrement: Task-evoked but not baseline pupil measures reflect declining performance in visual vigilance tasks
Joel T. Martin, Annalise H. Whittaker, Stephen J. Johnston
bioRxiv 2021.12.01.470724; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.01.470724

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