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

本研究旨在探讨唤醒程度与眨眼活动之间的关系。即EVEBLING速率。潜伏期和波形。在实验1中，我们考察了心理负荷、发声和时间任务对视觉觉醒任务中眨眼活动的影响。受试者(n=49)被指示观看CRT显示器，识别目标字母，并从120个刺激中数出目标的数目。刺激是日语假名字母，以0.5赫兹的频率顺序呈现。持续时间为1秒。在该任务下，眨眼频率降低，但这种影响随着时间的推移而降低。平均眨眼频率在发声状态下显着增加，但在三种精神负荷水平之间没有差异。眨眼潜伏期，从刺激开始的时间延迟，在目标试验中延长了100-250ms，并随着精神负荷的增加而增加。眨眼反应的幅度和上升/下降时间随着心理负荷的增加而降低。在实验2中，被试(n=12)在催眠状态下进行相同的任务。催眠组的平均眨眼率明显低于非催眠组(n=12)，说明眨眼活动是反映觉醒状态的良好指标。显然，潜伏期和波形测量是离散试验范式中短期唤醒状态或任务需求的有力指标。这也表明，在连续延长的任务范式中，眨眼率测量对长期唤醒状态，即疲劳状态是敏感的。

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.