Inter‐ and intra‐individual coupling between pupillary, electrophysiological, and behavioral responses in a visual oddball task

Abstract

Although the P3b component of the event‐related brain potential is one of the most widely studied components, its underlying generators are not currently well understood. Recent theories have suggested that the P3b is triggered by phasic activation of the locus‐coeruleus norepinephrine (LC‐NE) system, an important control center implicated in facilitating optimal task‐relevant behavior. Previous research has reported strong correlations between pupil dilation and LC activity, suggesting that pupil diameter is a useful indicator for ongoing LC‐NE activity. Given the strong relationship between LC activity and pupil dilation, if the P3b is driven by phasic LC activity, there should be a robust trial‐to‐trial relationship with the phasic pupillary dilation response (PDR). However, previous work examining relationships between concurrently recorded pupillary and P3b responses has not supported this. One possibility is that the relationship between the measures might be carried primarily by either inter‐individual (i.e., between‐participant) or intra‐individual (i.e., within‐participant) contributions to coupling, and prior work has not systematically delineated these relationships. Doing so in the current study, we do not find evidence for either inter‐individual or intra‐individual relationships between the PDR and P3b responses. However, baseline pupil dilation did predict the P3b. Interestingly, both the PDR and P3b independently predicted inter‐individual and intra‐individual variability in decision response time. Implications for the LC‐P3b hypothesis are discussed.

Pupil Dilation and the Slow Wave ERP Reflect Surprise about Choice Outcome Resulting from Intrinsic Variability in Decision Confidence

“…2014 ; Kamp and Donchin 2015 ; Mückschel et al. 2017 ; LoTemplio et al. 2020 ) and suggests that these established markers of phasic arousal are driven by distinct sources.…”

MEYE: Web App for Translational and Real-Time Pupillometry

“…In humans, we tested MEYE capabilities to detect the PLR. Furthermore, we performed a visual oddball paradigm ( Liao et al, 2016 ; Aggius-Vella et al, 2020 ; LoTemplio et al, 2021 ), comparing pupil size and eye position measurements obtained from MEYE with one of the most used commercial eye-tracker systems: the EyeLink 1000. Finally, we released a dataset of 11,897 eye images that can be used to train other artificial intelligence tools.…”

On the relationship of arousal and attentional distraction by emotional novel sounds

“…Although our hypothesis-driven modeling explored a range of plausible candidate models, the remaining range of conceivable alternative models was quite large. Potential alternative models could, for instance, contain PDR effects at the participant-level as well as effects of baseline PDR at both levels (LoTemplio et al, 2021;Murphy et al, 2011). In order to systemize the search for a model explaining the data best, we specified a range of more complex models on an exploratory basis and selected the best-fitting model using the Bayesian information criterion (BIC; Burnham & Anderson, 2004;Schwarz, 1978).…”

“…We expected, 1) task-irrelevant novel sounds to evoke prolonged RT compared to standard sounds (distraction effect; Escera et al, 1998;Schröger & Wolff, 1998) and increased PDR (Murphy et al, 2011;Widmann et al, 2018), 2) reduced distraction effects in response to emotional novel sounds compared to neutral novel sounds (Max et al, 2015) but increased PDR to emotional vs. neutral novel sounds (Bonmassar et al, 2020) and 3) a negative correlation at trial level between distraction effects and changes in the PDR for emotional distractor sounds, indicating a direct relation between emotion-induced enhanced level of arousal and reduced emotion-related distraction effects. A correlation at a trial level would imply shared attentional mechanisms involved in the processing emotional sounds, whereas a correlation at a participant level, would imply different mechanisms involved (for an example of different levels of analysis see LoTemplio et al, 2021). Moreover, we were interested in effects of temperament, because individual differences in emotional, motor and attentional reactivity and self-regulations processes modulating such reactivity may influence distraction effects (Pesonen et al, 2010;Rueda & Rothbart, 2009).…”