Is working memory capacity related to baseline pupil diameter?
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BRIEF REPORT
Is working memory capacity related to baseline pupil diameter? Nash Unsworth 1 & Ashley L. Miller 1 & Matthew K. Robison 2 Accepted: 14 September 2020 # The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2020
Abstract The relation between working memory capacity (WMC) and baseline pupil diameter was examined. Participants (N = 341) performed several WMC tasks and baseline pupil diameter was measured in a dark room with a black background screen. The results indicated a weak and non-significant correlation between WMC and baseline pupil diameter consistent with some prior research. A meta-analysis of available studies (k = 26; N = 4356) similarly indicated a weak and non-significant correlation between WMC and baseline pupil diameter. Moderator analyses indicated that the primary moderator responsible for heterogeneity across studies was where the study was conducted. Studies from one laboratory tend to demonstrate a significant positive correlation, whereas other laboratories have yet to demonstrate the correlation. Broadly, the results suggest that the correlation between WMC and baseline pupil diameter is weak and not particularly robust. Keywords Working memory . Individual differences in memory capacity
Introduction Working memory, our ability to actively maintain and use representations for ongoing processing, is a vital component of the broader cognitive system. Variation in working memory capacity (WMC) is related to a number of other cognitive domains (e.g., Engle & Kane, 2004; Unsworth, 2016). A prominent theory of individual differences in WMC suggests that this variation is due to individual differences in attention control (or executive attention) abilities (Engle & Kane, 2004; Kane & Engle, 2002; Unsworth & Engle, 2007). Recently we extended the attention control view of WMC by suggesting that individual differences in WMC and attention control are partially driven by differences in fluctuations of attention control regulated by the locus coeruleus (LC)-norepinephrine (NE) system (LC-NE) (Unsworth & Robison, 2017a, 2017b). The LC is a brainstem neuromodulatory nucleus that is responsible for most of the NE released in the brain, and it has widespread projections throughout the neocortex
* Nash Unsworth [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA
2
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA
including frontal-parietal areas (Berridge & Waterhouse, 2003; Szabadi, 2013). The LC-NE system seems to be particularly important for regulating arousal and alertness, which are critical for sustained attention (Aston-Jones & Cohen, 2005; Berridge & Waterhouse, 2003; Szabadi, 2013). As such, we suggested that individual differences in WMC and attention control were partially due to variation in LC-NE functioning. To examine these issues we and others have relied on pupillometry based on prior research that has suggested that pupillary responses provide an indirect index of LC-NE functioning (Aston-Jones & Cohen, 2005; Gilzenrat et al., 2010; Jos
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