The research concerning to the spontaneous eyeblinking as an index of arousal - and activitiy - livel.

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The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between arousal level and eyeblink activities. i.e., eveblink rate. latency, and waveform. In Experiment 1, we examinedthe effects of mental load, vocalization, and time-on task upon blink activities in the visual vigillance task. Subjects (n=49) were instructed to watch the CRT display and to identify the target letters, and to count the number of targets among 120 stimuli. The stimulus, Japanese 'kana' letter, was presented sequentially with a frequency of 0.5-Hz. The duration was 1sec. The blink rate decreased under the task but the effect decreased as a function of the time course. The mean blink rate increased significantly in the vocalizedcondition but did not differ among 3-levels of mental load. The eyeblink latency, time delay from the stimulus onset, prolonged 100-250ms in the target-trial and increased as a function of mental load. The amplitude and rise/fall times of blink response decreased as a function of mental load. In Experiment 2, subjects(n=12) were engaged in the same task under hypnotic state. The mean eyeblink rate in the hypnosis grooup significantly lower than that in the non-hypnotic control group(n=12).These results showed that the eyeblink activity is a good index of arousal state. It is clear that the latency and waveform measures are powerful indices of short-term arousal state or a task demand in the discrete trial paradigm. It ts also indicated that the eyeblink rate measure is sensitive to the long-term arousal states, i.e., fatigue, in the continuously prolonged task paradigm.