Task-evoked pupillary responses, processing load, and the structure of processing resources.
Abstract
A physiological measure of processing load or mental effort required to perform a cognitive task should accurately reflect within-task, between-task, and betweenindividual variations in processing demands. This article reviews all available experimental data and concludes that the task-evoked pupillary response fulfills these criteria. Alternative explanations are considered and rejected. Some implications for neurophysiological and cognitive theories of processing resources are discussed.
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Numerous studies in various fields have found pupillometry to be useful to measure cognitive load.
“Numerous studies in various fields have also found pupillometry to be useful to measure cognitive load (Beatty 1982;Hess 1965;Hess and Polt 1964;Kahneman and Beatty 1966;Klingner et al. 2008Klingner et al. , 2011;;Paas et al. 2003;Szulewski et al. 2014).”
From Measuring physician cognitive load: validity evidence for a physiologic and a psychometric tool (2017) · cites this paper as Beatty 1982
Beatty (1982) found that digit and linguistic tasks of increasing complexity caused pupillary size to increase to greater degrees.
“Beatty (1982) found that digit and linguistic tasks of increasing complexity caused pupillary size to increase to greater degrees.”
From Measuring physician cognitive load: validity evidence for a physiologic and a psychometric tool (2017) · cites this paper as Beatty 1982
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- Authors
- Beatty, J.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Corresponding author
- Beatty, Jackson
- Venue
- Psychological Bulletin
- Published
- 1982
- Volume
- 91
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 276-292
- ISSN
- 0033-2909 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1455
- OpenAlex
- W2062242288
- Cited by
- 1,959
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 110 · 2025: 130 · 2024: 95 · 2023: 97 · 2022: 112 · 2021: 118 · 2020: 116 · 2019: 119 · 2018: 132 · 2017: 99 · 2016: 96 · 2015: 85 · 2014: 86 · 2013: 72 · 2012: 44
- FWCI
- 4.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Human-Automation Interaction and Safety
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Gaze Tracking and Assistive Technology
- Keywords
- pupillary response, processing load, cognitive effort, processing resources
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Brain, Humans, Mental Processes, Reflex, Pupillary
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