Seminar of Division of Cognitive Science - Nagy Márton Gáspár (10.4.2024)

Wednesday 10.4.2024 at 12:20, Lecture room I/9

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Dr. Nagy Márton Gáspár (Department of Cognitive Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary):
Pupil and gaze dynamics jointly measure individual statistical learning

Abstract:
Statistical learning is a fundamental mechanism underlying the acquisition of the regularities of the sensory environment, however understanding of the learning process itself is still rudimentary. We assessed pupil diameter and eye movements as potential continuous indicators of spatial statistical learning.
The pupil is known to reflect subjective uncertainty, but has not been used in similarly complex visual learning scenarios previously. Additionally, eye movements have been linked to statistical learning before, but only in well defined search tasks requiring single trial responses. In contrast, our paradigm does not require responses on each trial, just free visual exploration.
In 3 studies (N=154) using an active spatial statistical learning paradigm and manipulating the length and the explicitness of learning, we have found that after sufficient learning (～15 mins of exposure), pupil size was larger on interleaved trials that violate the previously encountered regularities, than on trials that fit earlier patterns. Additionally, there was an increase in eye movements in directions consistent with the underlying statistical structure. Importantly, the strength of these effects were correlated with the performance on the subsequent familiarity test, both with explicit and implicit learning instructions. Finally, the two measures exhibited contrasting outcomes in terms of awareness of the statistical structure with implicit learning instructions: eye movements emerged as a more effective indicator of awareness of the learned structures, whereas pupil size proved to be a robust predictor of individual learning performance among implicit learners lacking awareness.

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