Tyler Reese
Major: Integrative Neuroscience
Student Biography: Tyler Reese is a senior at Fordham University. She is an Integrative Neuroscience major, with a concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience. Her research interests are in perception, memory and decision-making. She aims to continue to pursue cognitive neuroscience research in the future.
Title of Research: The Relationship of Pupil Size and Skin Conductance With Perceptual Certainty
Faculty Mentor: Roozbeh Kiani, NYU Center for Neuroscience
Abstract: Pupil size and skin conductance response are involuntary physiological responses that can reveal pivotal information concerning autonomic nervous system activity and cognitive processes. Studies have found that stressful stimuli can cause facial temperature to decrease because of blood redirection to vital organs. Research has also implicated cognitive states of alertness, stress and strain in pupillary dilation due to an increase in arousal level and stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system. Uncertainty in decision-making in relation to autonomic responses have been an ongoing topic of interest because of the mental strain and heightened attentiveness that underlies this stressful circumstance. However, perceptual certainty in discriminating auditory frequencies has largely gone unexplored, especially in conjunction with visual discrimination analysis. This current study explores the relationship of pupil size and skin conductance response with perceptual certainty in three experiments. Subjects are directed to complete a visual dot direction discrimination task with varied motion cohesion strength, a second iteration of the direction discrimination task with a confidence report, and an auditory frequency discrimination task with a confidence report to eliminate confounds caused by visual stimuli. It is hypothesized that pupil size and skin conductance are predictive of confidence, with greater pupillary dilation and reduced skin temperature in response to higher reported uncertainty. Pupillometry has served as a promising diagnostic tool for mental conditions such as autism, depression and Parkinson’s disease. A greater understanding of pupillometry is crucial for gaining insight into the irregularities in neural circuits and signaling that underlie many of these neuropsychiatric disorders.