The Economy of Action - Laziness

Tasks that we studied varied considerably in their effects on the pupil. At base line, our subjects were probably at a higher level of arousal and cognitive readiness than usual. Tests of short term memory for six or seven digits were more effortful. A task that required discriminating between the pitch of two tones yielded significantly larger dilations. Recent research has shown that inhibiting the tendency to read distracting words also induces moderate effort.