The effects of text-based interest on attention and recall

Attentional demands and recall for stories that differed in rated interest were examined. Mon interesting stories required fewer attentional resources for comprehension than did less interesting stories (Experiment 1). Overal l recall did not differ across story interest, but story interest did inter act with type of encoding in terms of recall levels (Experiment 2). Relatio nal encoding improved recall for low-interest stories but not high-interest stories; the reverse pattern was obtained with a manipulation encouraging extensive processing of the individual propositions. We suggest that intere sting stories free up resources for relatively optional organizational proc essing of the text elements, thereby rendering additional relational proces sing redundant (for recall). Less interesting stories require more resource s to keep attention focused on encoding the individual propositions, thereb y rendering additional proposition-specific processing redundant.