Previous evidence suggests that changes in spontaneous eye blink rate (EBR) in human adults might reflect the amount of attentional demand (i.e. cognitive load) during cognitive tasks. However, the actual direction of this relation is uncertain, since most studies investigated the role of cognitive load on EBR by employing visual tasks only. Here we aimed at elucidating the relationship between EBR and cognitive load in non-visual tasks.

Sixteen healthy participants performed two auditory oddball tasks, i.e. passive listening to auditory tones versus active counting of target tones; each oddball task was immediately followed by a rest phase. Throughout the oddball tasks we assessed EBR and recorded the P300 on ERPs as an electrophysiological measure of attention.

The results showed that participants’ EBR increased during the active task compared to the respective rest phase. Amplitude and latency of the P300 too differed between passive and active tasks, but changes in EBR and P300 features were not correlated with each other.

Our findings demonstrated that an increase in cognitive load is associated with an increase in EBR in cognitive tasks not involving visual attention. These findings are consistent with previous evidence suggesting shared neurobiological bases between attention and EBR.

先前的证据表明，成年人中自发眨眼频率（EBR）的变化可能反映了认知任务期间的注意力需求量（即认知负荷）。但是，这种关系的实际方向尚不确定，因为大多数研究仅通过使用视觉任务来研究认知负荷对EBR的作用。在这里，我们旨在阐明非视觉任务中EBR与认知负荷之间的关系。

16名健康参与者执行了两项听觉怪异任务，即被动听听听声与主动计算目标声；每个奇怪的任务都紧随其后的是休息阶段。在整个古怪的任务中，我们评估了EBR并在ERP上记录了P300，作为注意力的电生理指标。

结果表明，与各自的休息阶段相比，参与者在活动任务期间的EBR有所增加。P300的幅度和等待时间在被动任务和主动任务之间也有所不同，但是EBR和P300功能的变化并不相互关联。

我们的研究结果表明，认知负荷的增加与不涉及视觉注意力的认知任务中EBR的增加有关。这些发现与以前的证据一致，表明注意力和EBR之间存在着共同的神经生物学基础。