Is accommodation a confounder in pupillometry research?

•The aim was to uncover to what extent accommodation is a confounder in pupillometry.•Participants had to solve multiplications and look at line drawings with depth cues.•Pupil diameter, lens refraction, and vergence angle were measured.•The measured refraction changes were too small to explain the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biological psychology 2021-03, Vol.160, p.108046-108046, Article 108046
Main Authors: Kooijman, L., Dodou, D., Jansen, S.T., Themans, T.S., Russell, J.N.M., Petermeijer, S.M., Doorman, J.R.C., Hablé, J.H., Neubert, D.S., Vos, M.J.C., de Winter, J.C.F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accommodation, Ocular
Apparent depth
Cognitive load
Cues
Emotions
Humans
Mental demands
Near triad
Pupil
Pupil dilation
Pupillary near reflex
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Summary:•The aim was to uncover to what extent accommodation is a confounder in pupillometry.•Participants had to solve multiplications and look at line drawings with depth cues.•Pupil diameter, lens refraction, and vergence angle were measured.•The measured refraction changes were too small to explain the pupil diameter changes.•Hess and Polt (1964) and Kahneman and Beatty (1966) were successfully replicated.•Pupillary near reflex is not a major concern in pupillometry. Much psychological research uses pupil diameter measurements to investigate the cognitive and emotional effects of visual stimuli. A potential problem is that accommodating at a nearby point causes the pupil to constrict. This study examined to what extent accommodation is a confounder in pupillometry research. Participants solved multiplication problems at different distances (Experiment 1) and looked at line drawings with different monocular depth cues (Experiment 2) while their pupil diameter, refraction, and vergence angle were recorded using a photorefractor. Experiment 1 showed that the pupils dilated while performing the multiplications, for all presentation distances. Pupillary constriction due to accommodation was not strong enough to override pupil dilation due to cognitive load. Experiment 2 showed that monocular depth cues caused a small shift in refraction in the expected direction. We conclude that, for the young student sample we used, pupil diameter measurements are not substantially affected by accommodation.
ISSN:0301-0511
1873-6246
DOI:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108046