Have you got a high EYE Q? People with large pupils are more intelligent, study finds

But only under the right lighting conditions, adds the authors of the study, both from the School of Psychology: professor Randall Engle and graduate student Jason Tsukahara. They gave reasoning, memory, and attention tests to volunteers and found that as well as being linked to arousal and exhaustion, pupil dilation can be used to understand the individual differences in intelligence, discovering that the larger the pupils, the higher the intelligence — except in the brightest lighting conditions. The study says this could be due to people with larger pupils having better results regulation of brain activity in a region linked to intelligence and memory. (Coverage of this study also appears in MSN Australia.)