Subjective and pupillometric markers of arousal during movie viewing

Poster Session A - Saturday, April 13, 2024, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Agnieszka Zuberer^1,2 (azuberer@gmail.com), Melanni Nanni-Zepeda^1,2, Flavio Frohlich³, Thomas Liebe^4,2,6, Peter Vavra⁶, Jörn Kaufmann⁷, Tino Zaehle⁷, Michael Esterman^8,9,10; ¹Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, ²Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Jena, Germany, ³Carolina Center for Neurostimulation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States, ⁴Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Magdeburg, Germany, ⁵Department of Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, ⁶Department of Biological Psychology, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany, ⁷Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany, ⁸National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System, United States, ⁹Boston Attention and Learning Laboratory, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA, ¹⁰Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

Introduction: The relationship between subjective and physiological measures of arousal during naturalistic experiences is poorly understood. This study aimed to bridge this gap by combining subjective arousal annotations and objective pupillometry measurements during movie watching of varying arousal levels. Methods: Participants (n=21; mean age 28.1 ± 6.5) viewed 5-minute clips from "21 Grams" (negative) and "Son's Room" (neutral) in counterbalanced order, undergoing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and pupillometry. Post-scanning, participants re-watched both clips, providing continuous arousal annotations. Linear mixed effects modeling was used to assess the emotional context's influence on inter-individual alignment. Results: Inter-individual synchronization of both pupil size and subjective annotations was significantly higher during the emotionally charged clip compared to the neutral clip. However, a notable mismatch occurred between synchronization peaks of pupil size and subjective measures during both movies, as no significant association was observed between inter-individual synchronization of pupil size and subjective annotations. Discussion: This study reveals that emotionally evocative movies induce cross-participant synchronization of objective and subjective measures of arousal, although each has unique temporal dynamics. This suggests there is a complex relationship between objective and subjective. The study unveils shared emotional experiences across participants watching the same movie. Conclusion: Analyzing emotional experiences through both lenses contributes to integrating subjective and objective measures in emotional arousal research.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Nonspatial