The pupil is surrounded by the colorful area known as the iris, which is responsible for controlling the size of the pupil. It can range from around two to eight millimeters. To be clear, pupil size refers to the diameter of the black circular aperture in the center of the eye. Using the tracker, we then calculated each participant’s average pupil size. All the while, the eye tracker was recording. We measured participants’ pupils at rest while they stared at a blank computer screen for up to four minutes. We measured participants’ pupil size using an eye tracker, a device that captures the reflection of light off the pupil and cornea using a high-powered camera and computer. Intrigued, we conducted several large-scale studies in which we recruited more than 500 people aged 18 to 35 from the Atlanta community. When we discovered a relationship between baseline pupil size and intelligence, we weren’t sure if it was real or what it meant. We used pupil dilations as an indicator of effort, a technique psychologist Daniel Kahneman popularized in the 1960s and 1970s. We first uncovered this surprising relationship while studying differences in the amount of mental effort people used to complete memory tasks. In fact, across three studies, we found that the difference in baseline pupil size between people who scored the highest on the cognitive tests and those who scored the lowest was large enough to be detected by the unaided eye. The larger the pupils, the higher the intelligence, as measured by tests of reasoning, attention and memory. Now work conducted in our laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that baseline pupil size is closely related to individual differences in intelligence. Pupil dilation is even used by the FBI to detect deception. They indicate arousal, interest or mental exhaustion. Our pupils respond to more than just the light. It has been said that “the eyes are the window to the soul,” but new research suggests that they may be a window to the brain as well.
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