Departamento de Psicología Básica II, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, C/Juan del Rosal 10, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
Percept Mot Skills. 2009 Dec;109(3):664-78. doi: 10.2466/pms.109.3.664-678.
To analyze how pupillary responses reflect mental effort and allocation of processing resources under several load conditions, the pupil diameter of 18 participants was recorded during an auditory digit-span recall task under three load conditions: Low (5 digits), Moderate (8 digits), and Overload (11 digits). In previous research, under all load conditions a significant linear enlargement in pupil diameter was observed as each digit was presented. Significant dilations from the end of the presentation phase to the beginning of the recall phase were also observed but only under low and moderate loads. Contrary to previous research, under the Overload condition, no reduction in pupil diameter was observed when resource limits were exceeded; however, a plateau was observed when the ninth digit was presented until the beginning of the recall phase. Overall, pupillometric data seem to indicate that participants may keep processing actively even though resources are exceeded.
为分析在几种负荷条件下瞳孔反应如何反映心理努力和处理资源的分配，在三种负荷条件下（低负荷：5 位数字、中负荷：8 位数字、超负荷：11 位数字）记录了 18 名参与者在听觉数字广度回忆任务期间的瞳孔直径。在之前的研究中，在所有负荷条件下，随着每个数字的呈现，瞳孔直径都呈现出显著的线性扩大。在呈现阶段结束到回忆阶段开始之间也观察到了显著的扩张，但仅在低负荷和中负荷条件下观察到。与之前的研究相反，在超负荷条件下，当资源达到极限时，瞳孔直径没有观察到缩小；然而，当呈现第九位数字时，直到回忆阶段开始，瞳孔直径才出现平台。总体而言，瞳孔测量数据似乎表明，即使资源超过了限制，参与者仍可能继续积极处理信息。
