This work is inspired by the observation of surprising daily fluctuations in the number of valid iris code bits used to match irises in the NEXUS program operated by the Canadian Border Security Agency. These fluctuations have an impact on iris comparison scores but cannot be simply explained by pupil dilation, which does not have a clear pattern that would generalise to a population. To check if fluctuations in the number of valid iris code bits may be explained by eyelid aperture observed in a controlled, laboratory environment, the eyelid aperture was measured for 18 subjects participating in an acquisition every 2 h during the day. Simultaneously, the pupil dilation was measured to check the existence of a daily pattern for a population and for single subjects. There are two interesting outcomes of this work. First, there are statistically significant changes during the day in both pupil dilation and eyelid opening observed for individual subjects. Second, these changes do not generalise well into a common pattern for the group. Consequently, the diurnal fluctuations in the number of bits compared and the comparison score observed in the NEXUS program cannot be explained by changes in pupil dilation nor by eyelid aperture.

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Analysis of diurnal changes in pupil dilation and eyelid aperture

References

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