Understanding Narrative Interest: Some Evidence on the Role of Unexpectedness
Adrian Dimulescu, Jean-Louis Dessalles, Telecom Paristech · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · 2009
This study is an attempt to measure the variations of interest aroused by conversational narratives when definite dimensions of the reported events are manipulated. The results are compared with the predictions of the Complexity Drop Theory, which states that events are more interesting when they appear simpler, in the Kolmogorov sense, than anticipated. Conversational narratives represent a significant part of spontaneous language, maybe up to 40 % (Eggins & Slade, 1997, p.144). A significant part of individuals ’ social construction depends on their ability to tell interesting stories about events drawn from their daily life (Polanyi, 1979, Eggins & Slade, 1997, p.16, Norrick, 2000, p.84). The study presented in this paper is an attempt to measure the influence on interest of definite dimensions of the reported events.