Hypothesis Relating Arousal Level and Blink Rate

The relation between arousal level and blink rate has not yet been clarified. One of the causes is a difference of the task done by previous study. Visual tasks greatly influence blink rate, therefore, it is necessary to examine the relation between arousal level and blink rate as it pertains to vision. In this study, the relation between arousal level and blink rate was examined through testing the effects that performing visual task and non-visual task (auditory task) had on 12 university students. The index of arousal level was an electroencephalogram (α-index). As a result of the experiment, we proposed hypothesis relating arousal level and blink rate. In this hypothesis, the blink rate decreases as arousal level decreases when arousal level decreases below a certain level. However, with visual tasks, the blink rate tends to temporarily increase as arousal level decrease. And, we also proposed extended hypothesis. In this hypothesis, when arousal level increases markedly, the blink rate also increases