Trial reportPloS one2019
Supportive hand-holding attenuates pupillary responses to stress in adult couples.
Trial report in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pupil size as a sensitive marker of acute stress dynamics.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Article
- Covert neural and autonomic signatures of shared perception.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
- Estradiol and non-REM sleep attenuate physiological and emotional responses to social-evaluative stress in healthy women.BMC medicine · 2025Article
- From Social Stress and Isolation to Autonomic Nervous System Dysregulation in Suicidal Behavior.Current psychiatry reports · 2024Review
- Pupillometry and autonomic nervous system responses to cognitive load and false feedback: an unsupervised machine learning approach.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Spousal emotional support and relationship quality buffers pupillary response to horror movies.PloS one · 2021Article
- Effects of Hand Holding on Anxiety and Pain During Prostate Biopsies: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.Patient preference and adherence · 2021Article
- Calming Effects of Touch in Human, Animal, and Robotic Interaction-Scientific State-of-the-Art and Technical Advances.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Review
- Assessing response to stressful emotions: a controlled crossover study using pupillometry.Porto biomedical journalArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSocial relationships, particularly marriage, have been shown to ameliorate the potentially pathogenic impact of stressful events but prior research has been mostly aimed at downstream effects, with less research on real-time reactivity. Pupillometry is an innovative procedure that allows us to see the effects of acute stress in real time. The muscles that control pupil size are linked to the autonomic nervous system, so that when stressed, the pupils dilate; this occurs within 200ms. This quick response allows us to see the immediate effects of acute stress on the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and the real-time effects of social support in buffering stress. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to examine the dampening effects of received social support on the ANS's pupillary response.
methodsEighty individuals (40 couples) were randomly assigned to either a spousal support (i.e., spouse hand-holding) or non-support condition (i.e., alone) and administered a Stroop task while pupil dilation was measured.
resultsThe Stroop task elicited a stress reaction in terms of pupil dilation in response to the incongruent task trials. Participants in the support condition showed accelerated habituation to the stress task (p < .001), and less pupil reactivity (p < .001) providing evidence for buffering effects of social support via spousal presence and hand-holding.
conclusionsThese results reveal the speed at which stress-buffering occurs, suggesting that pupillometry could be a good method to address the immediate dampening effects of social support.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.