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Kate McCulloch

@kmccul.bsky.social
28 followers 42 following 0 posts

Social evolutionary psychologist @ University of Suffolk and Branch Secretary @UCU Suffolk

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Reposted by Kate McCulloch
Edwin Dalmaijer @dalmaijer.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
NEW! Using #pupillometry during emotional stimuli, we found if/when individual stimulus ratings are associated with pupil size. In short, disgust was the strongest pupil dilator, whereas anger constricts it (a bit). Paper by fantastic first-author @kmccul.bsky.social et al.: doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...
The image is a graph that shows five lines (one for each emotion), punctuated with small dots for uncorrected statistical significance and bigger dots for statistical significance after multiple-comparisons correction. The x-axis is labelled "Time (seconds)" and runs from just before 0 to 30 seconds. The y-axis reads "Standardised beta coefficient" and runs from just under -0.15 to 0.3. A dotted line spans across y=0, and labels indicate that positive values mean that "Emotion predicts larger pupil" and negative values that "Emotion predicts smaller pupil". Anger (in red) shows a negative trajectory from ~5 seconds after stimulus onset, with some bits statistically different from 0. Fear (purple) is indistinguishable from 0, until it is associated with larger pupils in the last 2-3 seconds. Sadness is somewhat positively associated with pupil size, but not after multiple-comparisons correction. Happiness is associated with relative pupil dilation from ~3 seconds until the end of the stimulus. Disgust is by far the most prominent predictor of larger pupil size, with standardised coefficients about twice as high as for happiness.
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