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Perceptual degradation of visual stimuli decreases performance in many tasks. In word-reading, response time (RT) for words with no blur (NB) are slightly faster than for words with low blur (LB) and much faster than for words with high blur (HB). However, subsequently probing recognition memory for these words reveals superior memory sensitivity for HB words than NB words, and numerically worse memory for LB words than NB words.(Rosner, Davis & Milliken, 2015). This result suggests that a high level of perceptual degradation can enhance long-term memory, perhaps due to the upregulation of attention in response to processing difficulty at the time of encoding. Borrowing from the literature on pupil dilation as an index of mental effort (eg, Beatty, 1982), we incorporated pupil size as a measure of attentional engagement in the present study. In the encoding phase, half of the participants were presented with …