Elsevier

Psychiatry Research

Volume 5, Issue 3, December 1981, Pages 243-246
Psychiatry Research

Speaking, thinking, and blinking

https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-1781(81)90070-6Get rights and content

Abstract

The effect of several mental tasks on the spontaneous eye blink rate in 36 normals was examined. The blink rate during silence was 19.0 blinks/ minute. This was significantly lower than the mean blink rate during speech (24.7 blinks/minute) and while listening to a paragraph to be memorized (27.6 blinks/ minute). Reading reduced the blink rate to 12.3 blinks/ minute. Men were more able to suppress and speed up blinking than women.

References (16)

  • J.J. Tecce et al.

    Contingent negative variation and the distraction-arousal hypothesis

    Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology

    (1976)
  • D. Von Cramon et al.

    Blink frequency and speech motor activity

    Neuropsychologia

    (1980)
  • D.J. Cohen et al.

    Clonidine ameliorates Gilles de la Tourette syndrome

    Archives of General Psychiatry

    (1980)
  • G.E. Crane et al.

    Motor disorders induced by neuroleptics: A proposed new classification

    Archives of General Psychiatry

    (1971)
  • D.R. Gorham

    Proverbs Test

    (1956)
  • A. Hall

    The origin and purposes of blinking

    British Journal of Ophthalmology

    (1945)
  • M.K. Holland et al.

    Blinking and mental load

    Psychological Reports

    (1972)
  • E. Kraepelin

    Dementia Praecox

    (1919)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (112)

  • Patterns of eye blinks are modulated by auditory input in humans

    2022, Cognition
    Citation Excerpt :

    This is in accordance with the fact that the temporal patterns of eye blinks seem to be affected by a multitude of endogenous and exogenous factors (Cruz, Garcia, Pinto, & Cechetti, 2011; Rodriguez et al., 2017). In particular, besides physical or chemical, environmental conditions (Nakamori, Odawara, Nakajima, Mizutani, & Tsubota, 1997; Ponder & Kennedy, 1927; Tsubota, 1998; Tsubota et al., 1996), mean blink rate (MBR) was found to be affected by the degree of required attention (Baumstimler & Parrot, 1971; Cho, Sheng, Chan, Lee, & Tam, 2000; Drew, 1951; Gregory, 1952; Ponder & Kennedy, 1927; Poulton & Gregory, 1952), mental arousal (Březinová & Kendell, 1977; Stern, Walrath, & Goldstein, 1984; Telford & Thompson, 1933), emotional state (Ponder & Kennedy, 1927), fatigue (Kaneko & Sakamoto, 2001; Maffei & Angrilli, 2018; Stern, Boyer, & Schroeder, 1994), sleep deprivation (Barbato et al., 1995, 2000; Barbato et al., 2007; Crevits, Simons, & Wildenbeest, 2003), task difficulty (Tanaka & Yamaoka, 1993), task nature such as arithmetic operations or memory tasks (Bacher, Retz, Lindon, & Bell, 2017; Fukuda, Stern, Brown, & Russo, 2005; Holland & Tarlow, 1975; Irwin, 2014), verbal activities (Bentivoglio et al., 1997; Karson et al., 1981; Mori et al., 2008), working at visual displays (Freudenthaler, Neuf, Kadner, & Schlote, 2003; Schlote, Kadner, & Freudenthaler, 2004; Tsubota, 1998; Tsubota & Nakamori, 1993), simulated driving (Lal & Craig, 2002), flying (Morris & Miller, 1996) and air traffic control (McIntire, McKinley, Goodyear, & McIntire, 2014). One explanation for inter-individual differences in MBR is supposedly related to an association between MBR and dopaminergic activity, a specifically valuable finding in clinical contexts (Jongkees & Colzato, 2016; Taylor et al., 1999).

  • FPGA implementation of eye movement detection algorithm

    2021, Microprocessors and Microsystems
    Citation Excerpt :

    The frontal piece of the cornea is covered with a slender fluid film, the supposed “precornial tear film”. To spread this liquid over the corneal surface, normal opening and shutting of the eyelids, or Blinking, is required [11]. The main challenges in detecting eye movements from raw EOG signals are noise caused by other physical sources of interference, such as residential power lines, measuring circuits, electrodes, cables, and electromyography (EMG) signals.

  • Think before you speak: An investigation of eye activity patterns during conversations using eyewear

    2020, International Journal of Human Computer Studies
    Citation Excerpt :

    The result of blink rate under low communication load condition matches the finding in previous research (Hirokawa et al., 2004), which adopted a similar protocol to the yes/no answer task which used herein to induce the low communication load condition. The result found in the high communication load condition matches the observation by Karson et al. (1981) that blink rate in speaking and listening during a memorization task showed no difference and that memorization can increase the blink rate since memorization involves information registration and storage during short-term memory. Speaking in the low communication load condition was much easier than in the high communication load condition.

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text