New research shows a 23-year-old German student is able to shrink and enlarge his pupil on demand, a feat that was previously considered impossible. Two opposing muscles control the pupil (the dark center of the eye), allowing more light into dark environments and limiting it when entering bright environments. In the past, this process was thought to be fully automatic. A few people have been known to be able to change their pupil size indirectly.
Christoph Strauch, an assistant professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and a senior author of the study, explains that researchers knew that thinking about the sun could constrict pupils, and imagining a dark room or mentally calculating something could dilate them. Yet no one knew it was possible to directly control pupil size until a psychology student in Germany contacted Strauch after taking one of his courses. Around age fifteen or sixteen, DW, the young man identified in the case report by his initials, discovered that he could alter the size of his pupils.
The researcher reported that constricting the pupil felt like gripping or tensing something, while expanding it felt like releasing, relaxing it. In the beginning, he was able to change the size of his pupil by focusing in front of or behind an object, but eventually, he learned how to do it without focusing. His environment does not need to be bright or dark in order for him to change his pupil size; he only needs to focus on the eye. Strauch told Live Science that this distinguishes DW from others who have shown the ability to change their pupil size. Even more amazing is the fact, he can feel the muscles in the pupils, which was thought to be impossible.
DW’s ability to change his pupils’ size was confirmed through tests, but there was no evidence he was doing so indirectly. DW was able to dilate his pupils to a diameter of 0.09 inches (2.4 millimetres) and constrict them to a diameter of 0.03 inches (0.88 millimetres) without using any indirect methods. As a result, he improved both his focus and his eyesight to the point where he could now see objects twice as close to his face as he could before.
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In a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers observed increased activation in the brain regions associated with volitional impulses, or free will. Strauch speculates that other people may be able to learn this as well. Through finding and studying more people with this ability, it may be possible to develop a training method for controlling pupil size at will.
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