Cognitively driven pupil modulations reflect certain underlying brain functions. What do
these reflections tell us? Here, we review findings that have identified key roles for three …

To infer the causes of its sensations, the brain must call on a generative (predictive) model.
This necessitates passing local messages between populations of neurons to update beliefs …

In conditions of constant illumination, the eye pupil diameter indexes the modulation of
arousal state and responds to a large breadth of cognitive processes, including mental effort …

Salience describes the phenomenon by which an object stands out from a scene. While its
underlying processes are extensively studied in vision, mechanisms of auditory salience …

The ability to track the statistics of our surroundings is a key computational challenge. A
prominent theory proposes that the brain monitors for unexpected uncertainty–events which …

Novel sounds in the auditory oddball paradigm elicit a biphasic dilation of the pupil (PDR)
and P3a as well as novelty P3 event-related potentials (ERPs). The biphasic PDR has been …

Human listeners exhibit marked sensitivity to familiar music, perhaps most readily revealed
by popular “name that tune” games, in which listeners often succeed in recognizing a …

In this narrative review, we give an overview of the concept of rapid eye movement sleep
instability and its reported implications in the context of insomnia. The term rapid eye …

The locus coeruleus (LC) regulates attention via the release of norepinephrine (NE), with
levels of tonic LC activity constraining the intensity of phasic LC responses. In the current …

Pupil size under constant illumination reflects brain arousal state, and dilates in response to
novel information, or surprisal. Whether this response can be observed regardless of …