| Description |
Previous research has demonstrated that antecedent retrieval is influenced by memory-based factors such as elaboration, distance, and causality. It has been demonstrated that content interestingness may influence the degree to which readers attend to information in a passage. Although interestingness can improve student learning or comprehension, it can negatively affect learning outcomes when the interesting information is not the main idea of a text (i.e., seductive details). The present study examined whether a new variable, unexpectedness as a source of interestingness, also influences the process of antecedent retrieval. Participants read passages containing an antecedent and a same-category alternate for an anaphor; the alternate was either expected in the passage context or unexpected. Probe response times demonstrated that expectedness of the alternate influenced antecedent retrieval. The present findings imply that cognitive interest might be another new context-based factor that influences the resonance process besides distance, causality, elaboration, and featural overlap. The results also add to the growing body of literature that supports detrimental effects of seductive details. |
