Replicating five pupillometry studies of Eckhard Hess

de Winter, J.C.F.; Petermeijer, S.M.; Kooijman, L.; Dodou, D.

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2021.03.003

Replicating five pupillometry studies of Eckhard Hess

Title

Replicating five pupillometry studies of Eckhard Hess

Author

de Winter, J.C.F. (TU Delft Human-Robot Interaction)
Petermeijer, S.M. (TU Delft Human-Robot Interaction)
Kooijman, L. (TU Delft Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology)
Dodou, D. (TU Delft Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology)

Date

2021

Abstract

Several papers by Eckhard Hess from the 1960s and 1970s report that the pupils dilate or constrict according to the interest value, arousing content, or mental demands of visual stimuli. However, Hess mostly used small sample sizes and undocumented luminance control. In a first experiment (N = 182) and a second preregistered experiment (N = 147), we replicated five studies of Hess using modern equipment. Our experiments (1) did not support the hypothesis of gender differences in pupil diameter change with respect to baseline (PC) when viewing stimuli of different interest value, (2) showed that solving more difficult multiplications yields a larger PC in the seconds before providing an answer and a larger maximum PC, but a smaller PC at a fixed time after the onset of the multiplication, (3) did not support the hypothesis that participants’ PC mimics the pupil diameter in a pair of schematic eyes but not in single-eyed or three-eyed stimuli, (4) did not support the hypothesis of gender differences in PC when watching a video of a male trying to escape a mob, and (5) supported the hypothesis that arousing words yield a higher PC than non-arousing words. Although we did not observe consistent gender differences in PC, additional analyses showed gender differences in eye movements towards erogenous zones. Furthermore, PC strongly correlated with the luminance of the locations where participants looked. Overall, our replications confirm Hess's findings that pupils dilate in response to mental demands and stimuli of an arousing nature. Hess's hypotheses regarding pupil mimicry and gender differences in pupil dilation did not replicate.

Subject

Arousal
Gender differences
Interest
Mental demands
Pupil dilation
Replication study

To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a4c89e29-c26e-4e94-b2ac-53d86e6f1969

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2021.03.003

ISSN

0167-8760

Source

International Journal of Psychophysiology, 165, 145-205

Part of collection

Institutional Repository