Implicit statistical learning and pupil size: an untold love story?
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1
Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
In the last decade, many studies have investigated the mechanisms involved in statistical learning (SL), which consists in learning the statistical regularities of the environment. SL is characterized by two main features: first, it can remain implicit, i.e. it may influence behavior without awareness (Turk-browne, Junge, & Scholl, 2005); second, it requires only brief exposure to the stimuli, sometimes as brief as a few trials (Barakat, Seitz, & Shams, 2013). However, SL usually leads to very small behavioral changes that are often hard to measure. We reasoned that pupil size, thought to be indicative of noradrenergic activity in the brain related to high-level cognitive processes, might be used to track SL over time. In the present study we performed two experiments to test this hypothesis. In the first experiment, we presented a stream of letters, shown in succession at 1 Hz, and modeled as a Markov chain, in which each letter is predicted by the previous one. Participants had to stare passively at the stream. At random times during visual presentation, the statistical association between successive letters was violated. We found that the pupil size increased reliably following these violations of regularity. In the second experiment, we further investigated how such a relationship between statistical learning and pupil size is affected by attention and by the refresh rate of letters. Specifically, we compared tasks in which attention was focused either on the stream of letters, or on the fixation cross. We also tested three different rates of letter presentation (1.3Hz, 2Hz and 4Hz). Preliminary results revealed that the pupil response to violations of regularities was observed only when attention was focused on the letters, in agreement with the SL literature (Zhao, Al-Aidroos, & Turk-Browne, 2013). On the other hand, the different rates of change tested did not appear to affect the pupil response. These findings indicate that pupil size responds to the violations of statistical regularities in the visual environment and can thus be used to track statistical learning.
References
Barakat, B. K., Seitz, A. R., & Shams, L. (2013). The effect of statistical learning on internal stimulus representations : Predictable items are enhanced even when not predicted. COGNITION, 129(2), 205–211. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.07.003
Turk-browne, N. B., Junge, J. A., & Scholl, B. J. (2005). The Automaticity of Visual Statistical Learning, 134(4), 552–564. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.134.4.552
Zhao, J., Al-Aidroos, N., & Turk-Browne, N. B. (2013). Attention is spontaneously biased toward regularities. Psychological Science, 24(5), 667–77. doi:10.1177/0956797612460407
Keywords:
implicit learning,
statistical learning,
Pupil size,
behavioral neuroscience,
Visual Perception
Conference:
Belgian Brain Council 2014
MODULATING THE BRAIN: FACTS, FICTION, FUTURE, Ghent, Belgium, 4 Oct - 4 Oct, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Basic Neuroscience
Citation:
Alamia
A,
OLIVIER
E and
Zénon
A
(2014). Implicit statistical learning and pupil size: an untold love story?.
Conference Abstract:
Belgian Brain Council 2014
MODULATING THE BRAIN: FACTS, FICTION, FUTURE.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2014.214.00021
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Received:
28 Jun 2014;
Published Online:
30 Jun 2014.
*
Correspondence:
Mr. Andrea Alamia, Université Catholique de Louvain, Bruxelles, Belgium, artipago@gmail.com