Emphasis on peripheral vision is accompanied by pupil dilation

Abstract

People are best able to detect stimuli in peripheral vision when their pupils are large, and best able to discriminate stimuli in central vision when their pupils are small. However, it is unclear whether our visual system makes use of this by dilating the pupils when attention is directed towards peripheral vision. Therefore, we tested whether pupil size adapts to the breadth of attention. We found that pupils dilate with increasing attentional breadth, both when attention is diffusely spread and when attention is directed at specific locations in peripheral vision. We further found a correlation with performance, suggesting a functional benefit of this effect. Based on our results and others, we propose that cognitively driven pupil dilation is not an epiphenomenal marker of Locus Coeruleus activity, as is often assumed, but rather is an adaptive response that reflects an emphasis on peripheral vision.