Hearing measured with pupil dilation

Research published in the Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology has described a method of measuring hearing by monitoring pupil dilation.

Scientists in the US were inspired when the study’s lead author, Avinash Singh Bala, noticed that the pupils of untrained barn owls reacted to unexpected noises.

Eye tracking technology was used to measure pupil dilation in 31 adults who took part in a study at the University of Oregon. Pupil dilation was found to correspond with whether they reported hearing a tone or not.

It is hoped that these initial experiments could lead to the production of a pupil dilation hearing test which could rival standard tone-based hearing tests.