![]() This suggests that it dilates to arousal stimuli in general, not particularly to a positive emotion and/or evaluation such as attractiveness. Recent studies, which have had finer control over stimulus luminance and contrast with various tested conditions, have found that the pupil dilates to not only positive but also negative emotional stimuli (Burley, Gray, & Snowden, 2019 Bradley et al., 2008). For example, the pupillary dilation (in observers) found in the early era may have been confounded with stimulus luminance or contrast to which the pupil responds most sensitively and/or insufficient baseline conditions (Janisse, 1973). However, there is room for skepticism because the dynamic of the pupillary response to attractiveness could be more complicated than has been thought. Such interpersonal, positive feedback has been assumed for a long time. Then, in turn, they would appear attractive to observers. Together with activation of the mirror neuron system that may be involved in a positive circulation between the observer and the observed face (i.e., the actor), an intuitive prediction has been that the pupils of people who are attracted to faces they see dilate as an automatic response. This may be because of arousal and/or sexual attraction (Rieger & Savin-Williams, 2012 Caryl et al., 2009 Tombs & Silverman, 2004 Hess, Seltzer, & Shlien, 1965), which activates the sympathetic nervous system to induce pupil dilation. On the observer side, evidence indicated that individuals' pupils dilated when they were viewing emotionally toned stimuli, such as pictures of a baby for female participants and pictures of a partially nude man or woman for female and male participants, respectively (Hess, 1965 Hess & Polt, 1960 cf. Evidence in the early 1960s showed that actors' faces with enlarged pupils were perceived as more attractive to observers (Bull & Shead, 1979 Hess, 1965, 1975 Stass & Willis, 1967). These cosmetic techniques are based on the long-held belief of a close link between pupil dilation and positive attitudes such as (sexual) interests and/or emotional arousal and thus of a mutual path between the actor and the observer. Nowadays, people can use cosmetic contact lenses to make the pupil appear larger (by changing the color and/or appearance of the iris). In the Middle Ages, women ingested belladonna to dilate their pupils, which was supposed to make them appear seductive. Pupillary response reflects not only the peripheral nervous system's activity in response to ambient luminance changes (i.e., the pupillary light reflex) but also the central nervous system's activity underlying cognitive functions such as attention (Eldar, Cohen, & Niv, 2013 Einhäuser, Stout, Koch, & Carter, 2008 Aston-Jones & Cohen, 2005), memory (Zokaei, Board, Manohar, & Nobre, 2019 Naber, Frässle, Rutishauser, & Einhäuser, 2013 Goldinger & Papesh, 2012), decision-making (de Gee, Knapen, & Donner, 2014 Einhäuser, Koch, & Carter, 2010), emotion (Bradley, Miccoli, Escrig, & Lang, 2008 Partala & Surakka, 2003), and interpersonal impressions and attitudes (Hess, 1965, 1975 Janisse, 1973 Hess & Polt, 1960). The overall results suggest that pupil constriction not only reflects but, as a part of self-monitoring and attribution mechanisms, also possibly contributes to facial attractiveness implicitly. When pupillary responses were manipulated implicitly by relative background luminance changes (from the prestimulus screen), the facial attractiveness ratings were in accordance with the amount of pupil constriction, which could not be explained solely by simultaneous or sequential luminance contrast. When participants were asked to judge the roundness of faces, pupil constriction still correlated with their attractiveness but not the roundness rating score, indicating the automaticity of the pupil constriction to attractiveness. Further experiments showed that the effect of pupil constriction to attractiveness judgment extended to intrinsically esthetic visual objects such as natural scene images (as well as faces) but not to line-drawing geometric figures. While human participants were making an attractiveness judgment on faces, their pupil constricted more for the more attractive (as-to-be-rated) faces. ![]() ![]() Contrary to the long-held belief of a close linkage between pupil dilation and attractiveness, we found an early and transient pupil constriction response when participants viewed an attractive face (and the effect of luminance/contrast was controlled). ![]()
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