A short review and primer on pupillometry in human computer interaction applications

TL;DR

This paper provides a concise overview of pupillometry's application in human-computer interaction, emphasizing its potential for understanding cognitive and affective states in everyday interfaces.

Contribution

It offers a beginner-friendly primer on pupillometry in HCI, highlighting recent developments and differentiating from clinical and sports psychophysiology uses.

Findings

Pupil size correlates with cognitive workload and attention.

Pupillometry can reveal emotional and mental effort.

The paper emphasizes practical HCI applications.

Abstract

The application of psychophysiological signals in human-computer interaction is a growing field with significant potential for future smart personalised systems. Working in this emerging field requires comprehension of an array of physiological signals and analysis techniques. Pupillometry has been studied for over a century, but it has just recently started being used in human-computer interaction setups. Traditionally, pupil size has been used as an indicator of cognitive workload and mental effort. However, pupil size has been linked to other cognitive processes as well, ranging from attention to affective processing. We present a short review on the application of pupillometry in human-computer interaction. This paper aims to serve as a primer for the novice, enabling rapid familiarisation with the latest core concepts. We put special emphasis on everyday human-computer interface applications to distinguish from the more common clinical or sports uses of psychophysiology. This paper is an extract from a comprehensive review of the entire field of ambulatory psychophysiology, including 12 similar chapters, plus application guidelines and systematic review. Thus any citation should be made using the following reference: B. Cowley, M. Filetti, K. Lukander, J. Torniainen, A. Henelius, L. Ahonen, O. Barral, I. Kosunen, T. Valtonen, M. Huotilainen, N. Ravaja, G. Jacucci. The Psychophysiology Primer: a guide to methods and a broad review with a focus on human-computer interaction. Foundations and Trends in Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 9, no. 3-4, pp. 150-307, 2016.