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

doi:10.1111/ejn.15585

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 biobehavioural 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 behavioural 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, behavioural 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. Our data offer novel insights into the complex interplay of brain systems involved in vigilant attention and question the validity of the assumption that baseline (prestimulus) pupil size and task‐evoked (poststimulus) pupil measures reflect the tonic and phasic firing modes of the locus coeruleus.

Highlights

The term vigilance has received varied usage in scientific research, but broadly speaking, it refers to an organism’s ability to sustain its attention over prolonged periods ofEur J Neurosci. 2022;1–22.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ejn MARTIN ET AL.time (Kahneman & Treisman, 1984; Parasuraman et al, 1998; Parasuraman & Davies, 1982; Warm et al, 2008; Warm & Jerison, 1984)
This so-called vigilance decrement became the target of numerous research efforts in human factors and experimental psychology that sought to understand how factors specific to the task, the individual performing it, and the environment in which it is performed, all contribute to failures of vigilant attention (Frankmann & Adams, 1962; Mackie, 1987; Wiener, 1987)
In Experiment 1, we explored the relationship between pupil and performance measures (RT, accuracy, d0 and c) in a canonical vigilance task with stimuli presented in the visual modality

Summary

Introduction

The term vigilance has received varied usage in scientific research, but broadly speaking, it refers to an organism’s ability to sustain its attention over prolonged periods ofEur J Neurosci. 2022;1–22.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ejn MARTIN ET AL.time (Kahneman & Treisman, 1984; Parasuraman et al, 1998; Parasuraman & Davies, 1982; Warm et al, 2008; Warm & Jerison, 1984). Detection latency features in analyses of vigilance task performance (e.g., Basner & Dinges, 2011; Broadbent, 1958; Buck, 1966), and biometric technologies such as electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) continue to shape our understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms of vigilant attention (for review, see Fortenbaugh et al, 2017; Langner & Eickhoff, 2013; Oken et al, 2006) Another biometric technique that has been successfully applied to the study of vigilant attention is cognitive pupillometry, the measurement of the size and reactivity of the eyes’ pupils following exposure to psychologically relevant stimuli. The phasic mode is characterized by short bursts of activation in response to task-relevant stimuli and supports task engagement and exploitation of the environment, whereas the tonic mode is characterized by a sustained increase in baseline activation in response to diminishing task utility and supports disengagement from the current task and exploration of the environment (Aston-Jones & Cohen, 2005)

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