{"pk":49291,"title":"What makes people think a puzzle is fun to solve?","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Many tasks feel like chores, while others are fun. Why? Here we leverage a popular puzzle game, Sokoban, to explore potential sources of variation in how enjoyable different levels of this game are to solve. In Sokoban, players navigate a grid world, pushing boxes onto goal locations while avoiding getting stuck. We first analyzed natural game play statistics (n = 442 puzzles) and found that some variation in enjoyment ratings could be jointly predicted by surface-level features (e.g., puzzle area) and solution complexity. Next, we measured how much participants reported enjoying a puzzle immediately after attempting it (N= 250 participants). We found that on successful attempts, participants enjoyed it more when they took fewer moves, whereas when unsuccessful, having made more moves was associated with greater enjoyment. Together, these studies advance understanding of how both features of the task environment and the dynamics of exploration make some activities more fun than others.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Psychology; Problem Solving; Reasoning"}],"section":"Papers with Oral Presentation","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dm448rv","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Junyi","middle_name":"","last_name":"Chu","name_suffix":"","institution":"Stanford University","department":""},{"first_name":"Kristine","middle_name":"","last_name":"Zheng","name_suffix":"","institution":"Stanford University","department":""},{"first_name":"Judith","middle_name":"E.","last_name":"Fan","name_suffix":"","institution":"Stanford University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2025-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/49291/galley/37252/download/"}]}