a participant sat in front of a screen with both arms on a table. With the right hand a button was pressed, possibly resulting in a stimulus (indicated with green circles). The same stimulus modality was always presented in one experimental block, either auditory or somatosensory. Auditory stimuli were presented using headphones. Somatosensory stimuli were applied by a puff of air traveling through air tubes and inflating a membrane on the left middle- and index-fingers.
Tjerk Dercksen and colleagues from the Neurocognitive Development Group published a study that presents conclusive evidence that the unexpected omission of a sound or tactile stimulus evokes a pupil dilation response, presumably reflecting surprise and the orienting of attention.
This approach is well suited for use in clinical studies investigating predictive processing.
Read more:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1143931/full
