In dihydroisopyrene, the S 1 state is an almost equally-weighted linear combination of the HOMO to LUMO and the HOMO-1 to LUMO+1 excitations. The HOMO is largely non-overlapping with the LUMO, and the HOMO-1 with the LUMO+1. However, the HOMO and LUMO+1 -as well as HOMO-1 and LUMO -are almost perfectly overlapping. Therefore the electron density may not change notably upon excitation. This appears to be the case in all the bridged annulene perimeters we explore here, as the S 1 state is described by a superposition of two single-excited configurations.