Pupillometry tracks errors in interval timing.

Abstract

Recent primate studies suggest a potential link between pupil size and subjectively elapsed duration. Here, we sought to investigate the relationship between pupil size and perceived duration in human participants performing two temporal bisection tasks in the subsecond and suprasecond interval ranges. In the subsecond task, pupil diameter was greater during stimulus processing when shorter intervals were overestimated but also during and after stimulus offset when longer intervals were underestimated. By contrast, in the suprasecond task, larger pupil diameter was observed only in the late stimulus offset phase prior to response prompts when longer intervals were underestimated. This pattern of results suggests that pupil diameter relates to an error monitoring mechanism in interval timing. These results are at odds with a direct relationship between pupil size and the perception of duration but suggest that pupillometric variation might play a key role in signifying errors related to temporal judgments.