Why Is Spontaneous Blink Timing Informative? An Adaptive Scheduling Perspective
- 1Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors Dortmund (IfADo)
Abstract
Spontaneous eye blinks have long been linked to cognitive processing, yet how task demands shape blink timing and its relationship to behavioral performance remains unclear. We examined spontaneous blink behavior in 576 adults performing two variants of the Continuous Performance Task (CPT). Blink occurrence and timing were most strongly modulated by the experimental condition in the more demanding CPT-AX task, whereas their association with response time was stronger in the CPT-X task, where more consistent blink timing predicted faster responses. This dissociation suggests that task structure changes not only blink behavior but also the behavioral relevance of blink timing. These findings are consistent with an adaptive scheduling account of spontaneous blinking and provide a conceptual framework for understanding when and why blink timing contains chronometric information about ongoing cognition.
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BibTeX
@misc{arnau2026spontaneous,
title = {{Why Is Spontaneous Blink Timing Informative? An Adaptive Scheduling Perspective}},
author = {S. Arnau and A. Plachti and E. Alyan and E. Wascher and D. Schneider},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.21.753188},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.21.753188v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Why Is Spontaneous Blink Timing Informative? An Adaptive Scheduling Perspective
AU - S. Arnau
AU - A. Plachti
AU - E. Alyan
AU - E. Wascher
AU - D. Schneider
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.21.753188
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.21.753188v1
AB - Spontaneous eye blinks have long been linked to cognitive processing, yet how task demands shape blink timing and its relationship to behavioral performance remains unclear. We examined spontaneous blink behavior in 576 adults performing two variants of the Continuous Performance Task (CPT). Blink occurrence and timing were most strongly modulated by the experimental condition in the more demanding CPT-AX task, whereas their association with response time was stronger in the CPT-X task, where more consistent blink timing predicted faster responses. This dissociation suggests that task structure changes not only blink behavior but also the behavioral relevance of blink timing. These findings are consistent with an adaptive scheduling account of spontaneous blinking and provide a conceptual framework for understanding when and why blink timing contains chronometric information about ongoing cognition.
ER -