Pupillary fluctuation amplitude preceding target presentation is linked to the variable foreperiod effect on reaction time in Psychomotor Vigilance Tasks

Abstract

Understanding temporally attention fluctuations can benefit scientific knowledge and real-life applications. Temporal attention studies have typically used the reaction time (RT), which can be measured only after a target presentation, as an index of attention level. We have proposed the Micro-Pupillary Unrest Index (M-PUI) based on pupillary fluctuation amplitude to estimate RT before the target presentation. However, the kind of temporal attention effects that the M-PUI reflects remains unclear. We examined if the M-PUI shows two types of temporal attention effects initially reported for RTs in the variable foreperiod tasks: the variable foreperiod effect (FP effect) and the sequential effect (SE effect). The FP effect refers to a decrease in the RT due to an increase in the foreperiod of the current trial, whereas the SE effect refers to an increase in the RT in the early part of the foreperiod of the current trial due to an increase in the foreperiod of the previous trial. We used a simple reaction task with the medium-term variable foreperiods (Psychomotor Vigilance Task) and found that the M-PUI primarily reflects the FP effect. Inter-individual analyses showed that the FP effect on the M-PUI, unlike other eye movement indices, is correlated with the FP effect on RT. These results suggest that the M-PUI is a potentially powerful tool for investigating temporal attention fluctuations for a partly unpredictable target.