Interested neurons

“What makes something interesting? Appraisal research has proposed two appraisal structures for the emotion of interest. … Within-person analyses found that (a) interest and pleasantness were essentially unrelated; (b) appraised novelty- complexity positively predicted interest, but negatively predicted pleasantness; and (c) disturbing pictures were highly interesting but unpleasant, whereas calming pictures were highly pleasant but uninteresting. The results thus strongly suggest that interesting things needn't be pleasant. Implications for in vivo (versus retrospective) tests of competing appraisal predictions are considered.” In ‘Must interesting things be pleasant? A test of competing appraisal structures’ Turner Jr., Samuel A.; Silvia, Paul J., Emotion, Volume 6, Issue 4, 2006.