Jos Anna Mini, Westbrook Andrew, LoParco Sophia, Otto A Ross
Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada.
Center for Advanced Human Brain Imaging Research, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA.
Psychophysiology. 2025 Aug;62(8):e70115. doi: 10.1111/psyp.70115.
Previous research has shown that while larger phasic pupillary activity indexes lower switch costs and better performance on a Stroop task, greater tonic pupillary activity indexes greater exploration. However, the direct influence of tonic-phasic pupillary activity on cognitive flexibility and cognitive stability-two control modes that potentially trade off with each other-has not been systematically investigated. We examine these associations using a task that imposes varying requirements on flexibility (task switching) and stability (distractor inhibition). The task included ambiguous trials that captured participants' preference for cognitively flexible performance. Participants (n = 51) completed the task with pupillary measurement recording. We find a lower preference to voluntarily switch (lower flexibility preference) in individuals with higher switch costs (lower ability/effort exerted to be flexible) and in individuals with faster RTs on Distractor Inhibition trials (higher stability), indicating a possible trade off between an individual's cognitively stable performance and the preference to be flexible. Examining pupillary data, we show that a larger phasic pupillary response in Task Switch trials is associated with lower switch costs, that is, higher flexibility. Individuals with larger average tonic pupil diameter were less likely to voluntarily switch tasks in ambiguous trials (i.e., lower flexibility preference), contrary to our expectations. Finally, we observed that higher tonic pupillary measures predicted quicker errors on trials measuring cognitive stability and greater overall task disengagement. Taken together, our findings shed light on the differential relationships between phasic pupillary activity and tonic pupil diameter and stable versus flexible modes of cognitive control.
先前的研究表明，虽然较大的阶段性瞳孔活动预示着较低的转换成本以及在Stroop任务中更好的表现，但较强的持续性瞳孔活动预示着更强的探索性。然而，持续性 - 阶段性瞳孔活动对认知灵活性和认知稳定性（两种可能相互权衡的控制模式）的直接影响尚未得到系统研究。我们使用一项对灵活性（任务转换）和稳定性（干扰抑制）有不同要求的任务来检验这些关联。该任务包括模糊试验，以捕捉参与者对认知灵活表现的偏好。参与者（n = 51）在进行瞳孔测量记录的情况下完成任务。我们发现，在转换成本较高（灵活性方面能力/努力较低）的个体以及在干扰抑制试验中反应时间较快（稳定性较高）的个体中，自愿转换的偏好较低（灵活性偏好较低），这表明个体的认知稳定表现与灵活性偏好之间可能存在权衡。通过检查瞳孔数据，我们发现任务转换试验中较大的阶段性瞳孔反应与较低的转换成本相关，即更高的灵活性。平均持续性瞳孔直径较大的个体在模糊试验中不太可能自愿转换任务（即灵活性偏好较低），这与我们的预期相反。最后，我们观察到较高的持续性瞳孔测量值预示着在测量认知稳定性的试验中错误更快出现以及整体任务脱离程度更高。综上所述，我们的研究结果揭示了阶段性瞳孔活动与持续性瞳孔直径之间的差异关系，以及认知控制的稳定模式与灵活模式之间的差异关系。
