Pupils dilate in response to emotional states
Multiple empirical studies demonstrate that pupil dilation increases in response to emotional arousal and affective stimuli, driven by sympathetic nervous system activation.
The claim is a specific, empirical, and well-studied scientific hypothesis regarding human autonomic and physiological responses. The retrieved literature provides direct empirical evidence showing that emotional states and arousal reliably modulate pupil size (papers 0, 1, and 2), supporting the claim.
Christian Scharinger. Effects of emotional decorative pictures on cognitive load as assessed by pupil dilation and <scp>EEG</scp> frequency band power. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4087
Paper [0] demonstrates that negative emotional pictures lead to increased pupil dilation as a proxy for cognitive and emotional processing.
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Andreas Widmann, Erich Schröger, Nicole Wetzel. Emotion lies in the eye of the listener: emotional arousal to novel sounds is reflected in the sympathetic contribution to the pupil dilation response and the P3. 2018. https://doi.org/10.1101/250084
Paper [1] finds that emotionally arousing sounds enhance the sympathetic contribution to the pupil dilation response.
Taihei Tsutsumi, Kei Kanari. Disentangling Arousal and Attentional Contributions to Pupil Size: Toward Simultaneous Estimation of Emotional and Cognitive States. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.04.22.649972
Paper [2] confirms that emotional arousal robustly increases pupil size across conditions.
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