Multiple empirical studies demonstrate that pupil dilation increases in response to emotional arousal and affective stimuli, driven by sympathetic nervous system activation.
Evidence for · 3
Effects of emotional decorative pictures on cognitive load as assessed by pupil dilation and <scp>EEG</scp> frequency band power
2023 · cited by 10
Paper [0] demonstrates that negative emotional pictures lead to increased pupil dilation as a proxy for cognitive and emotional processing.
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More for · 2
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 · cited by 2
Paper [1] finds that emotionally arousing sounds enhance the sympathetic contribution to the pupil dilation response.
Disentangling Arousal and Attentional Contributions to Pupil Size: Toward Simultaneous Estimation of Emotional and Cognitive States
2025 · cited by 1
Paper [2] confirms that emotional arousal robustly increases pupil size across conditions.