Abstract
In the last 12 years, there have been several reports that the eye pupil adjusts to the brightness levels of scenes or of objects that are either imagined or illusory. This talk will review several types of evidence that have originated from different laboratories. The participants of these studies have been mainly humans, but recent evidence is showing that the same pupillary responses to optical illusions occur with animals, like rodents or monkeys. These works indicate that illusions of brightness cause rapid adjustments of the diameter of the pupil despite no changes in the physical levels of luminance, which remain constant during these experiments. This happens with both illusions of enhanced light (e.g., illusory glare) as of darkness (e.g., expanding dark holes, or illusions of moving within dark tunnels). The studies converge in showing that the effects on the pupil responses are robust and easily replicable. Importantly, the evidence points to some fundamental aspects of visual perception: It is constructive, not reflective of physical reality; it is embodied, since the oculomotor system reacts to mental images and optical illusions in a similar way than to physically present things; it is predictive, since the responses to illusions may represent preparatory responses to changes that are likely to happen, in a near future, in the physical environment.
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About the speaker
Bruno Laeng is professor in Cognitive Neuropsychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo. He received is Bachelor/Master in experimental psychology from Universitá La Sapienza (Roma, Italia) and Ph.D. in biological psychology from The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA). Previously held positions: University of Bergen, University of Troms?, University of Guelph (Canada), Harvard University (USA) and he has been a Clinical Research Fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston (USA).
Laeng is currently the Director of the Eye Tracking and Pupillometry laboratory at at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo. He is also one of the principal investigators at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion (RITMO), at the University of Oslo. In 2018, Laeng was called to be a member of The Norwegian Academy of Science (Humanities and Social Sciences Division). Laeng has previously spent his sabbatical leaves and been a visiting scholar at: Columbia University (New York), Universita' Cattolica (Rome), Sophia University and Senshu University, both in Tokyo (Japan) with fellowships from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
This event is free and open for everyone. Click here to join on Zoom.
Workshop
On November 12th there will be a workshop focusing on pupillometry, held by Camilo R. Ronderos (Postdoctoral fellow at IFIKK). Click here to read more, and here to sign up.