Pupil Constriction Causes Activity in the Human Retina and Visual System.

Overview

1. Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
2. Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands

Abstract

Pupil responses shape the earliest stages of visual perception by regulating the amount of light that enters the eye. How this affects visual processing is still poorly understood. Here we present evidence that pupil constriction causes activity in the human retina and visual system, independently of visual stimulation. Healthy human participants (N = 119) viewed brief visual stimuli (light increments or decrements) while pupil size, retinal activity (electroretinogram), and brain activity (electroencephalogram) were recorded. As expected, visual stimulation triggered an initial burst of retinal activity followed by pupil constriction (the pupil light response). Importantly, we used trial‐to‐trial variability in constriction latency to reveal a previously unknown retinal response that is locked to pupil constriction, rather than to visual stimulation. Presumably, and in line with similar findings in mice, this constriction‐locked retinal activity is a response to the sudden decrease in retinal light exposure that accompanies pupil constriction (although a contribution of iris muscle activity is not conclusively ruled out). A similar constriction‐locked response emerged later over visual cortex. Given these findings, an important open question is how the visual system maintains brightness constancy despite pupil‐induced retinal and cortical activity.

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Data

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Data Availability Statement

All data, experimental materials, analysis scripts, and Supporting Information are available from https://osf.io/2u6jv/.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Version 2, 28 September 2026

• Publisher: — → Wiley

Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 6 authors, 12 MeSH terms, 2 funders, 45 references.

Cite

This paper

Mathôt, S., Dimigen, O., Karsilar, H., Ruuskanen, V., Weiden, D., & Vilotijević, A. (2026). Pupil Constriction Causes Activity in the Human Retina and Visual System. Psychophysiology, 63(7), e70362. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.70362

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