Physiological Signatures of Value-Directed Remembering: Evidence From Pupillometry and Blink Rate

Poster Session F - Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Natalia Pallis-Hassani¹ (npallishassani@g.ucla.edu), Barbara Knowlton¹, Alan Castel¹, Jesse Rissman¹; ¹UCLA

Value-directed remembering (VDR) prioritizes motivationally relevant information, yet its physiological signatures remain unclear. Pupil dilation and spontaneous blink rate offer noninvasive indices of phasic catecholaminergic activity, putatively reflecting arousal and reward processing, respectively. We used eye-tracking to examine whether these measures index preparatory value-related processes that support selective memory encoding. Cognitively healthy young adult participants (n=37) performed a VDR task in which they encoded 120 pictures (unfamiliar landscape paintings) and 120 words presented in separate blocks. Each item was preceded by high or low value cues indicating how many points (linked to a bonus payout) could be earned by later remembering that item. Eye-tracking data captured pupil dilation and blink rate during the 4-second inter-stimulus interval that separated value cues and to-be-learned items. Memory was assessed the next day via a recognition test. Results revealed a notable congruence between behavioral and pupillometric data: for picture stimuli, participants showed a robust VDR effect, with greater recognition sensitivity (d′) for high-value items accompanied by greater preparatory pupil dilation. In contrast, word stimuli produced a smaller behavioral VDR effect and no reliable modulation of pupil dilation by value. Blink rate did not differ as a function of item value for either stimulus type. Together, these findings suggest that preparatory pupil-linked arousal, driven by the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system, may track value-based memory prioritization in a stimulus-dependent manner, whereas spontaneous blink rate may be less sensitive to value-related encoding processes under these task conditions.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic