It’s my pleasure to inform you that our latest paper, “Individual differences in pupil dilation to others’ emotional and neutral eyes with varying pupil sizes”, is out in Cognition and Emotion. In this paper, we examined the pupil size of adult participants while they viewed images of the eye region of individuals varying in emotional expression (neutral, happy, sad, fearful, angry) and pupil size (large, medium, small). Participants showed pupillary contagion regardless of the emotional expression. Individual differences in demographics (gender, age, socioeconomic status) and psychosocial factors (anxiety, depression, sleep problems) were also examined, yet the only factor related to pupillary contagion was socioeconomic status, with higher socioeconomic status predicting less pupillary contagion for emotionally-neutral stimuli. The results suggest that while pupillary contagion is a robust phenomenon, it can vary meaningfully across individuals.
Fawcett, C., Nordenswan, E., Yrttiaho, S., Häikiö, T., Korja, R., Karlsson, L., Karlsson, H., & Kataja, E-L. (2022). Individual differences in pupil dilation to others’ emotional and neutral eyes with varying pupil sizes. Cognition and Emotion. doi:10.1080/02699931.2022.2073973
Tuomo Häikiö 