The Repetition-Shift Plot Structure: A Cognitive Influence on Selection in the Marketplace of Ideas

Cognitive Science research on how to sequence examples to facilitate learning and memory has implications for how to structure information to facilitate its social distribution. Specifically, repetition among obviously similar items capitalizes on comparison to establish a pattern, enabling a final contrasting item to break the pattern and be interesting. We term this the Repetition-Shift plot structure. It is widespread: it is present in roughly a quarter of current full-page magazine advertisements, and about a third of story jokes and folktales. Results from an experiment show when and for whom jokes with this structure should be more interesting than those without the initial repetition. Thus we document evidence for a cognitive factor for how information is selected in the marketplace of ideas