Relationship between peripheral indicators of arousal as indicators of attentional networks

Abstract

The Drift Diffusion Model (DDM) has long been used to investigate perceptual decision making. Previous research has linked pupil size measures to decision making processes, which in turn were linked to parameters of the DDM (Strauch et al., 2022b; de Gee et al., 2014; Murphy et al., 2014). Little research has been done to pair the DDM to the orienting response, a spatial component of pupil size. This research attempts to investigate the relationship between the orienting response (spatial decision making) and parameters of the DDM. We used a spatial decision-making paradigm in which participants indicated which Gabor patch (left or right) was larger. The Gabor patches were laid over black- and white bars for 200ms at the start of a trial to induce a pupil light reflex. This allowed us to measure the degree of spatial attention (Strauch et al., 2022a). We found pupil constriction to be a significant predictor of RT as well as accuracy. Stronger pupil constriction indicated longer RT and lower accuracy. We additionally replicated previous findings by Murphy et al. (2014), baseline pupil size positively predicts accuracy. These results show we can indeed link the orienting response to DDM parameters. To what specific DDM parameters these can be linked is a topic for future research.