Effect of Awareness on an Indicator of Cognitive Load

Abstract

Prior research has shown that the rate of eye blinking is inversely related to cognitive load. In the present study, as in the prior work, some subjects were never told that their eyeblinks were being monitored. However, other subjects were deliberately informed. Each group of subjects performed both easy and difficult arithmetic. Awareness of being monitored reduced the blinking rate. However, the rate was still inversely related to difficulty of the task, even for the informed subjects. The methodological and theoretical implications of these findings were discussed.