One benefit of my stuttering career path is that I have smart friends in a number of different fields, one of whom kindly sent me a paper a few weeks ago called, Interest: The Curious Emotion by Paul Silvia, psych professor at UNC Greensboro. It turned out to be just one of Silvia's publications on the subject of interest and interestingness.
I was relieved to see that some of my guesses about interestingness are supported by actual research:
- Interest is the result of two appraisals: novelty/complexity and comprehensibility. (I think depth or range of application is also involved.)
- Interest and pleasantness are unrelated
I wrote to Prof. Silvia and he wrote back that advertising and educational psychology could have a fruitful conversation about what generates memory, engagement and interest. I think that's true.
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