Jul 7 – 8, 2022
Hybrid format: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics & Virtual (online)
Europe/Berlin timezone
What eye movements, pupil dilation, and blinking activity tell us about musical processing

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Adriana Zekveld

The pupil response to auditory stimuli: relevant factors

Among an array of measures used to assess effort and stress, pupillometry and cardiovascular measures are the most common ones. The pupil dilation response has been used as a proxy measure to study mental effort allocation since the seminal work of Kahneman and Beatty in the last century. Pupillometry has been applied in research to music processing to study auditory attention, engagement, salience, deviant detection, surprise, emotional processing and attractiveness. Pupillometry has also gained interest in the assessment of the mental effort required to process speech in difficult listening conditions. The pupil dilation response is sensitive to changes in intelligibility, the type of background sound (including music) and hearing acuity. Furthermore, the motivation and engagement of the listener influence the pupil response during speech perception. For example, social factors and monetary reward affect the  pupil dilation. This presentation provides an overview of the application of pupillometry to assess speech perception. I will discuss the correspondence with its application in research on music processing, the feasibility and value of the method, as well as limitations and potential confounders. Furthermore, the relationship with cardiovascular measures will be discussed.