Contributed Talk Sessions | Poster Sessions | All Posters | Search Papers

Poster Session A: Tuesday, August 12, 1:30 – 4:30 pm, de Brug & E‑Hall

Pupil dilations reflect surprisal during rapid auditory belief updating

Roman Fleischmann¹, David Meijer, Burcu Bayram, Michelle Spierings, Ulrich Pomper, Robert Baumgartner¹; ¹Austrian Academy of Sciences

Presenter: Robert Baumgartner

Pupil responses indicate modulations of belief updating by the locus coeruleus noradrenaline arousal system during explicit decision-making. In the present study we show that pupil dilation is sensitive to ongoing surprisal during rapid, online auditory perception. A group of 22 participants indicated the final direction of auditory motion sequences with random length and directional change points in a two-alternative forced choice task design. The ongoing pupil traces were aggregated in “low” and “high” surprisal conditions derived from Bayesian model predictions. This resulted in a positive relationship between high surprisal and pupil size from 571 – 1249 ms after sound onset. We conclude a mediatory role of the arousal system for implicit belief updating during ongoing perception.

Topic Area: Predictive Processing & Cognitive Control

Extended Abstract: Full Text PDF