The subjects were then put through an artificial-grammar learning task in which they were exposed to hidden patterns in letter strings.

They were asked to copy the individual letter strings and then to put a mark next to those that followed a similar pattern.

"People who read the nonsensical story checked off more letter strings -- clearly they were motivated to find structure," said Proulx.

"But what"s more important is that they were actually more accurate than those who read the more normal version of the story. They really did learn the pattern better than the other participants did.

"People feel uncomfortable when their expected associations are violated, and that creates an unconsc...

The subjects were then put through an artificial-grammar learning task in which they were exposed to hidden patterns in letter strings.

They were asked to copy the individual letter strings and then to put a mark next to those that followed a similar pattern.

"People who read the nonsensical story checked off more letter strings -- clearly they were motivated to find structure," said Proulx.

"But what"s more important is that they were actually more accurate than those who read the more normal version of the story. They really did learn the pattern better than the other participants did.

"People feel uncomfortable when their expected associations are violated, and that creates an unconscious desire to make sense of their surroundings.

"That feeling of discomfort may come from a surreal story, or from contemplating their own contradictory behaviors, but either way, people want to get rid of it. So they're motivated to learn new patterns," the expert added.