Topic attribute does not retain selected values on creation of page type

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concrete v8.3.2
When creating an instance of a page type that has a topics attribute with one or more topic entries selected,

I created a Page Type and set various attributes for that page type. When creating an instance of that page type, all other attributes (boolean, multi-select) are set with their pre-selected values except for the topics attribute. The attribute is attached to the new page instance, but no value is selected. The importValues() method looks like it should be doing its thing, but apparently is not.