Reading auditory attention from eye information

Abstract

In the daily environment where multiple stimuli coexist, the brain selectively and effectively processes the relevant information by directing attention to the object of interest. While much knowledge has been accumulated on how visual attention shifts, which can be easily estimated by eye gaze measurement, there have been insufficient investigations on auditory attention. We have focused on information that can be measured from the eyes and have studied the relationship of auditory attention with changes in pupil size and tiny involuntary saccadic eye movements called microsaccades. Pupil size is known to change due to various factors: the most fundamental response is the pupillary light response, in which the pupil constricts depending on the amount of light input. However, recent studies have revealed that the pupil size changes depending on the luminance of the covertly attended position, even if the actual light input is constant. Microsaccades have also been reported to reflect the direction of covert attention in the visual domain. In this paper, we introduce our previous study [1] that showed the relationship between auditory attention and pupillary responses as well as visual attention.