Memory, emotion, and pupil diameter: Repetition of natural scenes

Abstract

Recent studies have suggested that pupil diameter, like the "old-new" ERP, may be a measure of memory. Because the amplitude of the old-new ERP is enhanced for items encoded in the context of repetitions that are distributed (spaced), compared to massed (contiguous), we investigated whether pupil diameter is similarly sensitive to repetition. Emotional and neutral pictures of natural scenes were viewed once or repeated with massed (contiguous) or distributed (spaced) repetition during incidental free viewing and then tested on an explicit recognition test. Although an old-new difference in pupil diameter was found during successful recognition, pupil diameter was not enhanced for distributed, compared to massed, repetitions during either recognition or initial free viewing. Moreover, whereas a significant old-new difference was found for erotic scenes that had been seen only once during encoding, this difference was absent when erotic scenes were repeated. Taken together, the data suggest that pupil diameter is not a straightforward index of prior occurrence for natural scenes.