Cognitive Load and Pupillary Response.
Abstract
Twenty-five Naval Postgraduate students were used to test the hypothesis that long-term cognitive loading (information overloading) would result in pupillary constriction. Continuous mental mathematics was used as the cognitive loading task, with control tasks for arousal (looking at photos of nude women) and perceptual motor effort (counting dots with a button-press). Each task had 3 levels of difficulty. Analysis of the percentage change in minimum pupil diameter over 10 continuous trials showed significant effects for tasks and levels of difficulty and a complex pattern of pupillary dilations and constrictions over the last four trials that tended to support the hypothesis. Trends for maximum and minimum pupil diameters, percent change and latency of peak pupil diameters, and blink rates are shown. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1972
- Accession Number
- AD0751643
Entities
People
- Robert Eugene Scheidig
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School