UKC

My local climbing centre has changed its setting scheme so that there are large gaps in difficulty between each circuit.

I was talking to one of the setters and he said they'd read a french research paper on route setting.  Apparently it claimed people don't want constant small progress, but would rather be stuck for a long time before making a big step in progress 

The setter couldn't find this paper again, and I'm sure he's not fibbing, but no amount of googling has garnered any results.  Do any route setters here know the paper he's talking about?

I do not but I'd question the reliability and viability of such research tbh

I'd be surprised if it was even research as such, maybe just some sort of survey?

Whatever,  you'd think they would have asked their own customers what they wanted!

Also, climbers might like big leaps in improvement but having big gaps between problems in the wall probably isn't the way to achieve that, if in fact it's achievable at all for lots of climbers.

It sounds pretty counter-intuitive to me, which is why I'd like to read the paper to see if it was being misinterpreted.