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Updated: Aug 22, 2026

A Cognitive Paradigm to Investigate Interference in Working Memory by Distractions and Interruptions
Published on: July 16, 2015
Interestingness
1Department of Psychology, SUNY, Stony Brook 11794-2500.
Abstract:
What makes a statement interesting? In Expts 1 and 2, merely increasing the amount of background knowledge on a topic did not always increase the interest for statements on that topic. However, background knowledge that combined with a statement to create an interesting implicit proposition did increase interest. In Expt 3, the likelihood of an event's occurrence was not a good predictor of its interestingness, whereas there was a good correspondence between interest and changes in the subjects' beliefs. These findings suggest that interest is not a simple function of either unexpectedness or amount of background knowledge. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that statements changing a person's beliefs or confidence in beliefs are interesting.
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