U. S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
Psychophysiology. 2017 Oct;54(10):1436-1443. doi: 10.1111/psyp.12896. Epub 2017 Jun 7.
Pupillometry is commonly used in research to determine how much mental effort an individual is exerting while completing tasks. Traditionally, larger pupils are associated with increased mental effort when completing more difficult tasks. However, little research has investigated how pupils change as individuals learn a new task. In theory, as one repeatedly completes a task, the task demands should reduce, reliance on working memory should decrease, and the task should become more automatic. This should translate to faster completion times and smaller peak pupil dilations. We tested this hypothesis by having participants complete multiple trials of a cognitive task that requires individuals to orient themselves in space relative to a target. We found that trial completion times and maximum pupil size significantly reduced across trials. These data suggest that measuring changes in pupil dilation may help researchers determine whether individuals have shifted from a learned procedure to an automatic processing of information when learning a new task.
瞳孔测量法通常用于研究中，以确定个体在完成任务时付出了多少心理努力。传统上，当完成更困难的任务时，瞳孔越大表示付出的心理努力越大。然而，很少有研究调查个体在学习新任务时瞳孔如何变化。从理论上讲，当一个人反复完成一项任务时，任务要求应该会降低，对工作记忆的依赖应该会减少，任务应该变得更加自动化。这应该意味着完成时间更快，瞳孔最大扩张幅度更小。我们通过让参与者多次完成一项认知任务来检验这一假设，该任务要求个体相对于目标在空间中定位自己。我们发现，随着试验次数的增加，完成试验的时间和最大瞳孔尺寸明显减少。这些数据表明，测量瞳孔扩张的变化可能有助于研究人员确定在学习新任务时，个体是否已经从学习过程转变为对信息的自动处理。
