Neural mechanisms underlying the induction and relief of perceptual curiosity

Neural Representations of Sensory Uncertainty and Confidence Are Associated with Perceptual Curiosity

Humans are immensely curious and motivated to reduce uncertainty, but little is known about the neural mechanisms that generate curiosity. Curiosity is inversely associated with confidence, suggesting that it is triggered by states of low confidence (subjective uncertainty), but the neural mechanisms of this link, have been little investigated. Inspired by studies of sensory uncertainty, we hypothesized that visual areas provide multivariate representations of uncertainty, which are read out by higher-order structures to generate signals of confidence and, ultimately, curiosity. We scanned participants (17 female, 15 male) using fMRI while they performed a new task in which they rated their confidence in identifying distorted images of animals and objects and their curiosity to see the clear image. We measured the activity evoked by each image in the occipitotemporal cortex (OTC) and devised a new metric of "OTC Certainty" indicating the strength of evidence this activity conveys about the animal versus object categories. We show that, perceptual curiosity peaked at low confidence and OTC Certainty negatively correlated with curiosity, establishing a link between curiosity and a multivariate representation of sensory uncertainty. Moreover, univariate (average) activity in two frontal areas-vmPFC and ACC-correlated positively with confidence and negatively with curiosity, and the vmPFC mediated the relationship between OTC Certainty and curiosity. The results reveal novel mechanisms through which uncertainty about an event generates curiosity about that event.

An untapped potential: Curiosity in medical school

BACKGROUND

There seems to be a common perception among medical educators that curiosity is untapped or even subjugated in medical education. This review aims to summarize research on curiosity across the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and education and report its potential to advance medical education.

METHODS

For this narrative review multiple online libraries were searched using variations of the terms curiosity and school/education/learning. Additional studies were reviewed using the reference lists of included studies, and all studies were assessed for quality and relevance.

RESULTS

This review of previous research on curiosity shows that curiosity can significantly impact characteristics relevant to medical education, particularly mental health and learning. In addition, the authors outline how curiosity is linked to other epistemic emotions such as anxiety, novelty, surprise, and uncertainty. Finally, an epistemic-emotion-framework (EEF) is proposed to help educators encourage curiosity in medical students.

CONCLUSION

By drawing from other research fields, medical educators can learn valuable lessons about the importance of curiosity and how to influence it. This review provides an overview of current research and a framework for how the potential of curiosity can be harnessed to play an important role in students' medical education.

Neural mechanisms of information seeking

We ubiquitously seek information to make better decisions. Particularly in the modern age, when more information is available at our fingertips than ever, the information we choose to collect determines the quality of our decisions. Decision neuroscience has long adopted empirical approaches where the information available to decision-makers is fully controlled by the researchers, leaving neural mechanisms of information seeking less understood. Although information seeking has long been studied in the context of the exploration-exploitation trade-off, recent studies have widened the scope to investigate more overt information seeking in a way distinct from other decision processes. Insights gained from these studies, accumulated over the last few years, raise the possibility that information seeking is driven by the reward system signaling the subjective value of information. In this piece, we review findings from the recent studies, highlighting the conceptual and empirical relationships between distinct literatures, and discuss future research directions necessary to establish a more comprehensive understanding of how individuals seek information as a part of value-based decision-making.

A transdisciplinary view on curiosity beyond linguistic humans: animals, infants, and artificial intelligence

Curiosity is a core driver for life-long learning, problem-solving and decision-making. In a broad sense, curiosity is defined as the intrinsically motivated acquisition of novel information. Despite a decades-long history of curiosity research and the earliest human theories arising from studies of laboratory rodents, curiosity has mainly been considered in two camps: 'linguistic human' and 'other'. This is despite psychology being heritable, and there are many continuities in cognitive capacities across the animal kingdom. Boundary-pushing cross-disciplinary debates on curiosity are lacking, and the relative exclusion of pre-linguistic infants and non-human animals has led to a scientific impasse which more broadly impedes the development of artificially intelligent systems modelled on curiosity in natural agents. In this review, we synthesize literature across multiple disciplines that have studied curiosity in non-verbal systems. By highlighting how similar findings have been produced across the separate disciplines of animal behaviour, developmental psychology, neuroscience, and computational cognition, we discuss how this can be used to advance our understanding of curiosity. We propose, for the first time, how features of curiosity could be quantified and therefore studied more operationally across systems: across different species, developmental stages, and natural or artificial agents.

The Protective Role of Curiosity Behaviors in Coping with Existential Vacuum

An existential vacuum is experienced as a kind of crisis that one can cope with using his/her strengths. The related literature suggests that the important determinants of coping with existential emptiness include positive emotional and personality resources, and among these-Curiosity Behaviors. The purpose of this study is to describe the role of curiosity as an important factor in relation to emotional resources in individuals experiencing an existential vacuum. A survey was conducted using online tools (n = 484). The hypotheses about the direct and indirect relationships between Curiosity Behaviors and existential vacuum were tested using multiple regression analyses and mediations. The study involved a sample of adult participants representing the general population. The participants completed five questionnaires, the first one focusing on Curiosity Behaviors, such as seeking out novel and challenging experiences and engagement in activities that capture one's attention (The Curiosity and Exploration Inventory), and the other tools being the Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale, the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire, the Flourishing Scale, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. The results indicate that Curiosity Behaviors characteristically negatively predict existential vacuum. In addition, other variables, such as Flourishing, seem to be useful in explaining the relationships between these factors. Flourishing along with Curiosity increases a sense of Meaning in Life. Our results present evidence showing the importance of Curiosity Behaviors in coping with the existential vacuum.

Curiosity Satisfaction Increases Event-related Potentials Sensitive to Reward

Successful learning depends on various factors such as depth of processing, motivation, or curiosity about information. A strong drive to learn something or the expectation of receiving a reward can be crucial to enhance learning. However, the influence of curiosity on the processing of new information and its similarity with reward processing is not well understood. This study examined whether states of curiosity influence specific ERPs associated with reward processing and whether these ERPs are related with later memory benefits. In an initial screening phase, participants indicated their curiosity and confidence in prior knowledge about answers to various trivia questions. In a subsequent study phase, we targeted different time windows related to reward processing during the presentation of trivia answers containing the reward positivity (RewP; 250-350 msec), the P3 (250-500 msec), and the late-positive-potential (LPP; 600-1000 msec). In a following surprise memory test, we found that participants recalled more high- than low-curiosity answers. The RewP, P3, and LPP showed greater positive mean amplitudes for high compared with low curiosity, reflecting increased reward processing. In addition, we found that the RewP and the P3 showed more positive mean amplitudes for later recalled compared with later forgotten answers, but curiosity did not modulate this encoding-related results. These findings support the view that the satisfaction of curiosity resembles reward processing, indicated by ERPs.

Curiosity evolves as information unfolds

When people feel curious, they often seek information to resolve their curiosity. Reaching resolution, however, does not always occur in a single step but instead may follow the accumulation of information over time. Here, we investigated changes in curiosity over a dynamic information-gathering process and how these changes related to affective and cognitive states as well as behavior. Human participants performed an Evolving Line Drawing Task, during which they reported guesses about the drawings' identities and made choices about whether to keep watching. In Study 1, the timing of choices was predetermined and externally imposed, while in Study 2, participants had agency in the timing of guesses and choices. Using this dynamic paradigm, we found that even within a single information-gathering episode, curiosity evolved in concert with other emotional states and with confidence. In both studies, we showed that the relationship between curiosity and confidence depended on stimulus entropy (unique guesses across participants) and on guess accuracy. We demonstrated that curiosity is multifaceted and can be experienced as either positive or negative depending on the state of information gathering. Critically, even when given the choice to alleviate uncertainty immediately (i.e., view a spoiler), higher curiosity promoted continuing to engage in the information-gathering process. Collectively, we show that curiosity changes over information accumulation to drive engagement with external stimuli, rather than to shortcut the path to resolution, highlighting the value inherent in the process of discovery.

Auditory and reward structures reflect the pleasure of musical expectancies during naturalistic listening

Enjoying music consistently engages key structures of the neural auditory and reward systems such as the right superior temporal gyrus (R STG) and ventral striatum (VS). Expectations seem to play a central role in this effect, as preferences reliably vary according to listeners' uncertainty about the musical future and surprise about the musical past. Accordingly, VS activity reflects the pleasure of musical surprise, and exhibits stronger correlations with R STG activity as pleasure grows. Yet the reward value of musical surprise - and thus the reason for these surprises engaging the reward system - remains an open question. Recent models of predictive neural processing and learning suggest that forming, testing, and updating hypotheses about one's environment may be intrinsically rewarding, and that the constantly evolving structure of musical patterns could provide ample opportunity for this procedure. Consistent with these accounts, our group previously found that listeners tend to prefer melodic excerpts taken from real music when it either validates their uncertain melodic predictions (i.e., is high in uncertainty and low in surprise) or when it challenges their highly confident ones (i.e., is low in uncertainty and high in surprise). An independent research group (Cheung et al., 2019) replicated these results with musical chord sequences, and identified their fMRI correlates in the STG, amygdala, and hippocampus but not the VS, raising new questions about the neural mechanisms of musical pleasure that the present study seeks to address. Here, we assessed concurrent liking ratings and hemodynamic fMRI signals as 24 participants listened to 50 naturalistic, real-world musical excerpts that varied across wide spectra of computationally modeled uncertainty and surprise. As in previous studies, liking ratings exhibited an interaction between uncertainty and surprise, with the strongest preferences for high uncertainty/low surprise and low uncertainty/high surprise. FMRI results also replicated previous findings, with music liking effects in the R STG and VS. Furthermore, we identify interactions between uncertainty and surprise on the one hand, and liking and surprise on the other, in VS activity. Altogether, these results provide important support for the hypothesized role of the VS in deriving pleasure from learning about musical structure.

When less is more: coy display behaviours and the temporal dynamics of animal courtship

Sexual selection research has been dominated by the notion that mate choice selects for the most vigorous displays that best reflect the quality of the courter. However, courtship displays are often temporally structured, containing different elements with varying degrees of intensity and conspicuousness. For example, highly intense movements are often coupled with more subtle components such as static postures or hiding displays. Here, we refer to such subtle display traits as 'coy', as they involve the withholding of information about maximal display capabilities. We examine the role of intensity variation within temporally dynamic displays, and discuss three hypotheses for the evolution of coy courtship behaviours. We first review the threat reduction hypothesis, which points to sexual coercion and sexual autonomy as important facets of sexual selection. We then suggest that variation in display magnitude exploits pre-existing perceptual biases for temporal contrast. Lastly, we propose that information withholding may leverage receivers' predispositions for filling gaps in information-the 'curiosity bias'. Overall, our goal is to draw attention to temporal variation in display magnitude, and to advocate possible scenarios for the evolution of courtship traits that regularly occur below performance maxima. Throughout, we highlight novel directions for empirical and theoretical investigations.

Sensitivity to intrinsic rewards is domain general and related to mental health

Humans frequently engage in intrinsically rewarding activities (for example, consuming art, reading). Despite such activities seeming diverse, we show that sensitivity to intrinsic rewards is domain general and associated with mental health. In this cross-sectional study, participants online (N = 483) were presented with putative visual, cognitive and social intrinsic rewards as well as monetary rewards and neutral stimuli. All rewards elicited positive feelings (were 'liked'), generated consummatory behaviour (were 'wanted') and increased the likelihood of the action leading to them (were 'reinforcing'). Factor analysis revealed that ~40% of response variance across stimuli was explained by a general sensitivity to all rewards, but not to neutral stimuli. Affective aspects of mental health were associated with sensitivity to intrinsic, but not monetary, rewards. These results may help explain thriving and suffering: individuals with high reward sensitivity will engage in a variety of intrinsically rewarding activities, eventually finding those they excel at, whereas low sensitivity individuals will not.

Korean infants' perceptual responses to Korean and Western music based on musical experience

This study investigates infants' enculturation to music in a bicultural musical environment. We tested 49 12- to 30-month-old Korean infants on their preference for Korean or Western traditional songs played by haegeum and cello. Korean infants have access to both Korean and Western music in their environment as captured on a survey of infants' daily exposure to music at home. Our results show that infants with less daily exposure to any kind of music at home listened longer to all music types. The infants' overall listening time did not differ between Korean and Western music and instruments. Rather, those with high exposure to Western music listened longer to Korean music played with haegeum. Moreover, older toddlers (aged 24-30 months) maintained a longer interest in songs of an origin with which they are less familiar, indicating an emerging orientation towards novelty. Early orientation of Korean infants toward the novel experience of music listening is likely driven by perceptual curiosity, which drives exploratory behavior that diminishes with continued exposure. On the other hand, older infants' orientation towards novel stimuli is led by epistemic curiosity, which motivates an infant to acquire new knowledge. Korean infants' lack of differential listening likely reflects their protracted period of enculturation to ambient music due to complex input. Further, older infants' novelty-orientation is consistent with findings in bilingual infants' orientation towards novel information. Additional analysis showed a long-term effect of music exposure on infants' vocabulary development. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kllt0KA1tJk RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Korean infants showed novelty-oriented attention to music such that infants with less daily exposure to music at home showed longer listening times to music. 12- to 30-month-old Korean infants did not show differential listening to Korean versus Western music or instruments, suggesting a protracted period of perceptual openness. 24- to 30-month-old Korean toddlers' listening behavior indicated emerging novelty-preference, exhibiting delayed enculturation to ambient music compared to Western infants reported in earlier research. 18-month-old Korean infants with a greater weekly exposure to music had higher CDI scores a year later, consistent with the well-known music-to-language transfer effect.

A shared novelty-seeking basis for creativity and curiosity

Curiosity and creativity are central pillars of human growth and invention. Although they have been studied extensively in isolation, the relationship between them has not yet been established. We propose that both curiosity and creativity emanate from the same mechanism of novelty seeking. We first present a synthesis showing that curiosity and creativity are affected similarly by a number of key cognitive faculties such as memory, cognitive control, attention, and reward. We then review empirical evidence from neuroscience research, indicating that the same brain regions are involved in both curiosity and creativity, focusing on the interplay between three major brain networks: the default mode network, the salience network, and the executive control network. After substantiating the link between curiosity and creativity, we propose a novelty-seeking model (NSM) that underlies them and suggests that the manifestation of the NSM is governed by one's state of mind.

An integrated model of UTAUT2 to understand consumers' 5G technology acceptance using SEM-ANN approach

It has been a decade since the first extensive study on the internet's adoption and use was conducted. Circumstances have changed in the last decade internet has become an essential need for every human being. Socio-psychological, economic, and personal factors play a significant role in shaping human behaviour. But their role in shaping consumer behaviour toward 5G is still unexplored. In order to determine the impact of socio-psychological elements on 5G technology adoption intention, the study integrated curiosity, perceived value, functional value, and environmental awareness into UTAUT2 and analyzed how they interact. Instead of relying on linear models, this study employed a dual-stage SEM-ANN approach because customers' decision-making process to adopt new technology is complex. Valid responses from 840 respondents were collected, investigated, and ranked using the deep learning ANN approach. All predictors were found statistically significant except social influence. ANN sensitivity analysis revealed that newly integrated predictors (environmental awareness, curiosity) are surprisingly the most important predictors, followed by facilitating conditions and perceived satisfaction. SEM-ANN hybrid two-step deep learning approach explained 83.6% variance higher than the baseline model (UTAUT2). The study improved UTAUT2 by adding new variables and expanding its canvas to predict user technology adoption. This will show how consumers react to 5G services and help telecoms grow into new markets.

Curiosity enhances incidental object encoding in 8-month-old infants

Recent research with adults indicates that curiosity induced by uncertainty enhances learning and memory outcomes and that the resolution of curiosity has a special role in curiosity-driven learning. However, the role of curiosity-based learning in early development is unclear. Here we presented 8-month-old infants with a novel looking time procedure to explore (a) whether uncertainty-induced curiosity enhances learning of incidental information and (b) whether uncertainty-induced curiosity leads infants to seek uncertainty resolution over novelty. In Experiment 1, infants saw blurred images to induce curiosity (Curiosity sequence) or a clear image (Non-curiosity sequence) followed by presentation of incidental objects. Despite looking equally to the incidental objects in both sequences, in a subsequent object recognition phase infants looked longer to incidental objects presented in the Non-curiosity condition compared with the Curiosity condition, indicating that curiosity induced by blurred pictures enhanced the processing of the incidental object, leading to a novelty preference for the incidental object shown in the Non-Curiosity condition. In Experiment 2, a blurred picture of a novel toy was first presented, followed by its corresponding clear picture paired with a clear picture of a new novel toy side by side. Infants showed no preference for either image, providing no evidence for a drive to resolve uncertainty. Overall, the current experiments suggest that curiosity has a broad attention-enhancing effect in infancy. Taking into account existing studies with older children and adults, we propose a developmental change in the function of curiosity, from this attentional enhancement to more goal-directed information seeking in older children and adults.

Temporal and electroencephalography dynamics of surreal marketing

Event-related spectral perturbation analysis was employed in this study to explore whether surreal image designs containing metaphors could influence product marketing effects, including consumers' product curiosity, product comprehension, product preference, and purchase intention. A total of 30 healthy participants aged 21-30 years were recruited. Neurophysiological findings revealed that lower gamma, beta, and theta spectral powers were evoked in the right insula (Brodmann Area 13) by surreal marketing images. This was associated, behaviorally, with the manifestation of higher product curiosity and purchase intention. Based on previous research, the brain functions of this area include novelty, puzzle-solving, and cravings for reward caused by cognitive overload.

Effects of homework creativity on academic achievement and creativity disposition: Evidence from comparisons with homework time and completion based on two independent Chinese samples

During the past several decades, the previous studies have been focusing on the related theoretical issues and measuring tool of homework behaviors (mainly including homework time, completion, and homework creativity). However, the effects of these homework behaviors on general creativity remain unknown. Employing a number of questionnaires, this study investigated two samples from middle schools of Mainland China. The results showed that (1) the eight-item version of Homework Creativity Behaviors Scale had acceptable validity and reliability; (2) compared with homework completion and homework time, homework creativity explained less variety of academic achievement (3.7% for homework creativity; 5.4% for completion and time); (3) homework creativity explained more variance of general creativity than that of homework completion and homework time accounted (7.0% for homework creativity; 1.3% for completion and time); and (4) homework creativity was negatively associated with grade level. Contrary to the popular beliefs, homework completion and homework creativity have positive effects on the students' general creativity. Several issues that need further studies were also discussed.

Atonal Music as a Model for Investigating Exploratory Behavior

Atonal music is often characterized by low predictability stemming from the absence of tonal or metrical hierarchies. In contrast, Western tonal music exhibits intrinsic predictability due to its hierarchical structure and therefore, offers a directly accessible predictive model to the listener. In consequence, a specific challenge of atonal music is that listeners must generate a variety of new predictive models. Listeners must not only refrain from applying available tonal models to the heard music, but they must also search for statistical regularities and build new rules that may be related to musical properties other than pitch, such as timbre or dynamics. In this article, we propose that the generation of such new predictive models and the aesthetic experience of atonal music are characterized by internal states related to exploration. This is a behavior well characterized in behavioral neuroscience as fulfilling an innate drive to reduce uncertainty but which has received little attention in empirical music research. We support our proposal with emerging evidence that the hedonic value is associated with the recognition of patterns in low-predictability sound sequences and that atonal music elicits distinct behavioral responses in listeners. We end by outlining new research avenues that might both deepen our understanding of the aesthetic experience of atonal music in particular, and reveal core qualities of the aesthetic experience in general.

Independent and interacting value systems for reward and information in the human brain

Theories of prefrontal cortex (PFC) as optimizing reward value have been widely deployed to explain its activity in a diverse range of contexts, with substantial empirical support in neuroeconomics and decision neuroscience. Similar neural circuits, however, have also been associated with information processing. By using computational modeling, model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis, and a novel experimental paradigm, we aim at establishing whether a dedicated and independent value system for information exists in the human PFC. We identify two regions in the human PFC that independently encode reward and information. Our results provide empirical evidence for PFC as an optimizer of independent information and reward signals during decision-making under realistic scenarios, with potential implications for the interpretation of PFC activity in both healthy and clinical populations.

Who Tends to Appreciate Atonal Music? Higher Perceived Personal Control Leads to an Increased Inclination to Prefer Atonal Music

Research on the aesthetic experience of music has largely focused on tonal music, while relatively less is known about individuals’ differences in the aesthetic experience of atonal music. According to the compensatory control theory, we hypothesized that perceived personal control significantly and positively predicted individuals’ tendency to prefer atonal music, while the need for structure played a mediating role. The present research investigated who tends to prefer atonal music, and why. A sample of college students listened to atonal music and completed questionnaires on perceived personal control, the need for structure, and their aesthetic judgment of the music. Our analysis showed that individuals with higher perceived personal control exhibited a stronger tendency to prefer atonal music, compared with those who had lower perceived control; moreover, the need for structure played a mediating role between perceived control and aesthetic experience of atonal music. These results revealed which audience was suitable for atonal music and extended the explanatory scope of the compensatory control theory. The theoretical and practical implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Does Health Consciousness Matter to Adopt New Technology? An Integrated Model of UTAUT2 With SEM-fsQCA Approach

Every emerging technology has its pros and cons; health-conscious users pay more importance to healthy and environment-friendly technologies. Based on the UTAUT2 model, we proposed a comprehensive novel model to study the factors influencing consumers' decision-making to adopt the technology. Compared to prior studies that focused on linear models to investigate consumers' technology adoption intentions and use behavior. This study used a Structural Equation Modeling-fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (SEM-fsQCA) approach to account for the complexity of customers' decision-making processes in adopting new technology. We collected valid responses from 830 consumers, analyzed them, and evaluated them using a deep learning SEM-fsQCA technique to capture symmetric and asymmetric relations between variables. We have extensively incorporated a health-consciousness attitude as a predictor and mediator to understand better the decision-making toward technology adoption, specifically 5G technology. All the factors tested in our model are statistically significant except the economic factors. Health-consciousness attitude (HCA) and behavioral intention (BI) found significant predictors and valid mediators in the process of 5G technology adoption. FsQCA provided six configurations to achieve high 5G adoption. The findings have significant practical ramifications for telecom corporations, advertisers, government officials, and key policymakers. Additionally, the study added substantial theoretical literature to technology adoption, particularly the adoption of 5G technology.

A Possible Anti-anxiety Effect of Appetitive Aggression and a Possible Link to the Work of Donald Winnicott

Various pleasant sensations that give a particularly intense pleasure are able to improve anxiety. In the present study I consider the possibility that their anti-anxiety action depends on the strong pleasure they provide, and I propose a possible mechanism of this action. According to some studies, also appetitive aggression (an aggression that provokes a strong pleasure and that is performed only for the pleasure it provides) can improve anxiety, and in this article I consider the possibility that the pleasure of appetitive aggression is able to reduce anxiety by the same mechanism I have proposed for other intense pleasurable sensations. The aggression performed by a child against the mother or against a substitute for the mother in the first period of life (a period in which this aggression is not dangerous) is a recurring theme throughout the work of of Donald Winnicott. Winnicott stresses that this aggression is necessary for the normal development of the child, and that the child must be free to practise it. According to Winnicott, this aggression is highly pleasurable and is not a response to unpleasant or hostile external situations. For these characteristics it seems to correspond to appetitive aggression in the adult that has been found to be able to reduce anxiety. Consequently, aggression performed by the child in the first period of life may also relieve anxiety, in the same way that appetitive aggression helps against anxiety in the adult. In his writings, Winnicott returns several times to an unthinkable or archaic anxiety that children experience when they feel abandoned by their mother for a period that is too long for them, and all children, according to Winnicott, live on the brink of this anxiety. In this study I propose the hypothesis that aggression in the early period of life may be necessary for children because the intense pleasure it provides may help them against this continuously impending anxiety.

Curiosity-driven learning in adults with and without dyslexia

People are willing to spend time and money to receive information and content they are curious about, such as answers to trivia questions, suggesting they find information rewarding. In neurotypical adults, states of high curiosity satisfaction are also known to enhance the learning and memory of information encountered in that state. Here, we investigated whether the relationship between curiosity, satisfaction, and learning was altered in a group with specific learning difficulty (dyslexia). Using a willingness-to-wait paradigm, we observed that adults with and without dyslexia are willing to spend time waiting for verbal and visual information. This indicates that the same "wanting" mechanisms are seen in individuals with dyslexia for information. We then examined whether information that was desirable was also associated with enhanced memory. Our findings indicate that information does function like a reward, with the gap between expected and received information driving memory. However, this memory effect was attenuated in individuals with dyslexia. These findings point to the need to understand how reward drives learning and why this relationship might differ in dyslexia.

Cognitive and metacognitive, motivational, and resource considerations for learning new skills across the lifespan

Across the lifespan, learners have to tackle the challenges of learning new skills. These skills can range from abilities needed for survival, such as learning languages, learning to walk during infancy, and learning new software for a job in adulthood, to abilities related to leisure and hobbies. As the learner progresses through novice to expert stages, there are cognitive and metacognitive, motivational, and resource considerations for learning new skills. In terms of cognitive considerations, fluid and crystallized abilities as well as executive functions interact to help the learner process and retain information related to the skills. In terms of metacognitive considerations, knowing what to learn and how to learn are important for novel skill learning. In terms of motivational considerations, changes in individuals' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation throughout the lifespan impact their pursuit of novel skill learning, and declines in motivation can be buffered through the cultivation of grit, growth mindset, self-efficacy, and other personal factors. In terms of resource considerations, there are many tools that learners can use to acquire new skills, but allocation and availability of these resources differ based on life stage and socioeconomic status. Taken together, these considerations may provide learners with the best chance at acquiring new skills across the lifespan. Further research investigating these three factors, particularly among older adult learners, and their interactive effects could help increase our understanding of their impacts on skill learning and inform future cognitive interventions that can be tailored to learners' unique needs. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Cognitive Development Psychology > Development and Aging Psychology > Learning.

Fluid Attention in Education: Conceptual and Neurobiological Framework

Attention is indispensable to our learning, performance, relationships, health, and daily life, and yet laboratory studies of attention have only scratched the surface of these lived varieties of attention. In this article, we begin with William James' theory of derived involuntary attention, which has largely been ignored in laboratory research. We then show that there is a gap in our attention vocabulary and the theory that underpins it, which depend on an incomplete voluntary/involuntary dichotomy. The negative effects of this dichotomy stretch beyond laboratory research to clinical diagnosis, influencing how we understand so-called attention deficits. To fill the gap between voluntary and involuntary, we introduce a third kind of attention—fluid attention (also called postvoluntary attention), which is goal-directed and selective, like voluntary attention, but also effortless and drawn to its source, like involuntary attention. Fluid attention is a rediscovery of James' derived involuntary attention. A distinguishing feature of fluid attention is its motivational component, which, we show, neurophysiologically also reveals a gap in the neurocognitive literature on attention. Recognizing fluid attention as fundamentally motivational allows ADHD to be redefined as a motivational rather than an attentional deficit, which we go on to show has significant implications for both special and regular education.

How anxiety predicts interpersonal curiosity during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediation effect of interpersonal distancing and autistic tendency

With the worldwide implementation of quarantine regulations to suppress the spread of the COVID-19, anxiety, interpersonal distancing and autistic tendency may decrease individuals' desire to seek interpersonal information and thus might have negative effects on their interpersonal curiosity. Through behavioral paradigms and scales, two studies were conducted (Study 1: n = 570; Study 2: n = 501). We explored the predictive effect of anxiety on interpersonal curiosity in situations when mandatory isolation measures have led to dramatic changes in interpersonal distancing and autistic tendency. We found that interpersonal distancing and autistic tendency negatively predicted interpersonal curiosity, and these predictive effects suppressed the positive prediction of state anxiety to interpersonal curiosity. Our research provides insights into the relationships among anxiety, curiosity, interpersonal distancing, and autistic tendency during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dynamic Representation of the Subjective Value of Information

To improve future decisions, people should seek information based on the value of information (VOI), which depends on the current evidence and the reward structure of the upcoming decision. When additional evidence is supplied, people should update the VOI to adjust subsequent information seeking, but the neurocognitive mechanisms of this updating process remain unknown. We used a modified beads task to examine how the VOI is represented and updated in the human brain of both sexes. We theoretically derived, and empirically verified, a normative prediction that the VOI depends on decision evidence and is biased by reward asymmetry. Using fMRI, we found that the subjective VOI is represented in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Critically, this VOI representation was updated when additional evidence was supplied, showing that the DLPFC dynamically tracks the up-to-date VOI over time. These results provide new insights into how humans adaptively seek information in the service of decision-making.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT For adaptive decision-making, people should seek information based on what they currently know and the extent to which additional information could improve the decision outcome, formalized as the VOI. Doing so requires dynamic updating of VOI according to outcome values and newly arriving evidence. We formalize these principles using a normative model and show that information seeking in people adheres to them. Using fMRI, we show that the underlying subjective VOI is represented in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and, critically, that it is updated in real time according to newly arriving evidence. Our results reveal the computational and neural dynamics through which evidence and values are combined to inform constantly evolving information-seeking decisions.

Curiosity or savouring? Information seeking is modulated by both uncertainty and valence

Curiosity is pervasive in our everyday lives, but we know little about the factors that contribute to this drive. In the current study, we assessed whether curiosity about uncertain outcomes is modulated by the valence of the information, i.e. whether the information is good or bad news. Using a lottery task in which outcome uncertainty, expected value and outcome valence (gain versus loss) were manipulated independently, we found that curiosity is overall higher for gains compared with losses and that curiosity increased with increasing outcome uncertainty for both gains and losses. These effects of uncertainty and valence did not interact, indicating that the motivation to reduce uncertainty and the motivation to maximize positive information represent separate, independent drives.

Curiosity in childhood and adolescence - what can we learn from the brain

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Curiosity enhances memory via the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and ventral striatum.

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Development of curiosity and its effect on memory in childhood/adolescence not well understood.

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Maturation of curiosity-promoting brain functions might contribute to increasing benefits of curiosity for learning.

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Harnessing curiosity in education might need differential approaches across child development.

Accumulating evidence in adults has shown that curiosity and surprise enhance memory via activity in the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and dopaminergic areas. Based on findings of how these brain areas and their inter-connections develop during childhood and adolescence, we discuss how the effects of curiosity and surprise on memory may develop during childhood and adolescence. We predict that the maturation of brain areas potentially related to curiosity elicitation (hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex [ACC], prefrontal cortex) and protracted development of hippocampal-PFC and ACC-PFC connectivity lead to differential effects of curiosity and surprise on memory during childhood and adolescence. Our predictions are centred within the PACE (Prediction-Appraisal-Curiosity-Exploration) Framework which proposes multiple levels of analyses of how curiosity is elicited and enhances memory.

Anticipation of novel environments enhances memory for incidental information

Novelty is a potent driver of learning, but little is known about whether anticipation of novelty can enhance memory for incidental information. Here, participants incidentally encountered objects while they actively navigated toward novel or previously familiarized virtual rooms. Across immediate and delayed surprise memory tests, participants showed superior recollection for incidental objects encountered while anticipating novel as compared with familiarized rooms. Furthermore, memory for incidental objects correlated positively with between-participants average curiosity about novel rooms but negatively with within-participants trial-specific curiosity. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on how salient processes impact memory for incidental material.

Uncertainty increases curiosity, but decreases happiness

You probably know what kind of things you are curious about, but can you also explain what it feels like to be curious? Previous studies have demonstrated that we are particularly curious when uncertainty is high and when information provides us with a substantial update of what we know. It is unclear, however, whether this drive to seek information (curiosity) is appetitive or aversive. Curiosity might correspond to an appetitive drive elicited by the state of uncertainty, because we like that state, or rather it might correspond to an aversive drive to reduce the state of uncertainty, because we don't like it. To investigate this, we obtained both subjective valence (happiness) and curiosity ratings from subjects who performed a lottery task that elicits uncertainty-dependent curiosity. We replicated a strong main effect of outcome uncertainty on curiosity: Curiosity increased with outcome uncertainty, irrespective of whether the outcome represented a monetary gain or loss. By contrast, happiness decreased with higher outcome uncertainty. This indicates that people were more curious, but less happy about lotteries with higher outcome uncertainty. These findings raise the hypothesis, to be tested in future work, that curiosity reflects an aversive drive to reduce the unpleasant state of uncertainty.

How Are Curiosity and Interest Different? Naïve Bayes Classification of People’s Beliefs

Researchers studying curiosity and interest note a lack of consensus in whether and how these important motivations for learning are distinct. Empirical attempts to distinguish them are impeded by this lack of conceptual clarity. Following a recent proposal that curiosity and interest are folk concepts, we sought to determine a non-expert consensus view on their distinction using machine learning methods. In Study 1, we demonstrate that there is a consensus in how they are distinguished, by training a Naïve Bayes classification algorithm to distinguish between free-text definitions of curiosity and interest (n = 396 definitions) and using cross-validation to test the classifier on two sets of data (main n = 196; additional n = 218). In Study 2, we demonstrate that the non-expert consensus is shared by experts and can plausibly underscore future empirical work, as the classifier accurately distinguished definitions provided by experts who study curiosity and interest (n = 92). Our results suggest a shared consensus on the distinction between curiosity and interest, providing a basis for much-needed conceptual clarity facilitating future empirical work. This consensus distinguishes curiosity as more active information seeking directed towards specific and previously unknown information. In contrast, interest is more pleasurable, in-depth, less momentary information seeking towards information in domains where people already have knowledge. However, we note that there are similarities between the concepts, as they are both motivating, involve feelings of wanting, and relate to knowledge acquisition.

Risk factors associated with curiosity about alcohol use in the ABCD cohort

Curiosity and intent to use alcohol in pre-adolescence is a risk factor for later experimentation and use, yet we know little of how curiosity about use develops. Here, we examine factors that may influence curiosity about alcohol use, as it may be an important predictor of later drinking behavior. Cross-sectional data on youth ages 10-11 from the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ (ABCD) Study Year 1 follow-up were used (n = 2,334; NDA 2.0.1). All participants were substance-naïve at time of assessment. Group factor analysis identified latent factors across common indicators of risk for early substance use (i.e., psychopathology and trait characteristics; substance use attitudes/behaviors; neurocognition; family and environment). Logistic mixed-effect models tested associations between latent factors of risk for early substance use and curiosity about alcohol use, controlling for demographics and study site. Two multidimensional factors were significantly inversely and positively associated with greater curiosity about alcohol use, respectively: 1) low internalizing and externalizing symptomatology coupled with low impulsivity, perceived neighborhood safety, negative parental history of alcohol use problems, and fewer adverse life experiences and family conflict; and 2) low perceived risk of alcohol use coupled with lack of peer disapproval of use. When assessing all risk factors in an overall regression, lack of perceived harm from trying alcohol once or twice was associated with greater likelihood of alcohol curiosity. Taken together, perceptions that alcohol use causes little harm and having peers with similar beliefs is related to curiosity about alcohol use among substance-naïve 10-11-year-olds. General mental health and environmental risk factors similarly increase the odds of curiosity for alcohol. Identification of multidimensional risk factors for early alcohol use may point to novel prevention and early intervention targets. Future longitudinal investigations in the ABCD cohort will determine the extent to which these factors and curiosity predict alcohol use among youth.

The Brain Circuits and Dynamics of Curiosity-Driven Behavior in Naturally Curious Marmosets

Curiosity is a fundamental nature of animals for adapting to changing environments, but its underlying brain circuits and mechanisms remain poorly understood. One main barrier is that existing studies use rewards to train animals and motivate their engagement in behavioral tasks. As such, the rewards become significant confounders in interpreting curiosity. Here, we overcame this problem by studying research-naïve and naturally curious marmosets that can proactively and persistently participate in a visual choice task without external rewards. When performing the task, the marmosets manifested a strong innate preference towards acquiring new information, associated with faster behavioral responses. Longitudinally functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed behavior-relevant brain states that reflected choice preferences and engaged several brain regions, including the cerebellum, the hippocampus, and cortical areas 19DI, 25, and 46D, with the cerebellum being the most prominent. These results unveil the essential brain circuits and dynamics underlying curiosity-driven activity.

Latent learning, cognitive maps, and curiosity

Curiosity is a desire for information that is not motivated by strategic concerns. Latent learning is not driven by standard reinforcement processes. We propose that curiosity serves the purpose of motivating latent learning. While latent learning is often treated as a passive or incidental process, it normally reflects a strong evolved pressure to actively seek large amounts of information. That information in turn allows curious decision makers to represent the structure of their environment, that is, to form cognitive maps. These cognitive maps then drive adaptive flexible behavior. Based on recent data, we propose that orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) play complementary roles in curiosity-driven learning. Specifically, we propose that (1) OFC tracks intrinsic value of information and incorporates new information into a cognitive map; and (2) dACC tracks the environmental demands and information availability to then use the cognitive map from OFC to guide behavior.

Visual affects: Linking curiosity, Aha-Erlebnis, and memory through information gain

Current theories propose that our sense of curiosity is determined by the learning progress or information gain that our cognitive system expects to make. However, few studies have explicitly tried to quantify subjective information gain and link it to measures of curiosity. Here, we asked people to report their curiosity about the intrinsically engaging perceptual 'puzzles' known as Mooney images, and to report on the strength of their aha experience upon revealing the solution image (curiosity relief). We also asked our participants (279) to make a guess concerning the solution of the image, and used the distribution of these guesses to compute the crowdsourced semantic entropy (or ambiguity) of the images, as a measure of the potential for information gain. Our results confirm that curiosity and, even more so, aha experience is substantially associated with this semantic information gain measure. These findings support the expected information gain theory of curiosity and suggest that the aha experience or intrinsic reward is driven by the actual information gain. In an unannounced memory part, we also established that the often reported influence of curiosity on memory is fully mediated by the aha experience or curiosity relief. We discuss the implications of our results for the burgeoning fields of curiosity and psychoaesthetics.

Electrophysiological Evidence of Dissociation Between Explicit Encoding and Fast Mapping of Novel Spoken Words

Existing behavioral, neuropsychological and functional neuroimaging data suggest that at least two major cognitive strategies are used for new word learning: fast mapping (FM) via context-dependent inference and explicit encoding (EE) via direct instruction. However, these distinctions remain debated at both behavioral and neurophysiological levels, not least due to confounds related to diverging experimental settings. Furthermore, the neural dynamics underpinning these two putative processes remain poorly understood. To tackle this, we designed a paradigm presenting 20 new spoken words in association with pictures in either FM or EE settings, closely matched for auditory and visual features and overall task demands. We tested word acquisition using a range of behavioral measures as well as passive event-related potential (ERP) responses, an established measure of word memory trace activation, and compared brain activity elicited by novel FM and EE words before and after the learning session. Behavioral data obtained in free recall, recognition and semantic word-picture matching tasks indicated successful acquisition of new words after just 10 exposures. Crucially, we found no behavioral evidence of different acquisition outcomes between FM and EE learning. ERP data, which exhibited the main response peaks at ~170, 250, and 520 ms, also indicated successful learning, with statistically different responses between novel and familiar words present only before, but not after the training, suggesting rapid formation of new neural memory circuits matching in activation those for previously known words. Furthermore, already at the earliest peak, we found different topographic distributions for the two learning types, with left-lateralized FM dynamics, suggestive of core language system involvement, and more diffuse activity for EE items, possibly suggesting the role of attention/executive control network. A similar effect also manifested later, at ~520 ms. Our data suggest that while both EE and FM learning can be successful for rapid word acquisition at the behavioral level, the diverging electrophysiological patterns suggest a dissociation between the neural systems underpinning these learning strategies.

What is the Effect of Stimulus Complexity on Attention to Repeating and Changing Information in Autism?

Slower habituation to repeating stimuli characterises Autism, but it is not known whether this is driven by difficulties with information processing or an attentional bias towards sameness. We conducted eye-tracking and presented looming geometrical shapes, clocks with moving arms and smiling faces, as two separate streams of stimuli (one repeating and one changing), to 7–15 years old children and adolescents (n = 103) with Autism, ADHD or co-occurring Autism+ADHD, and neurotypical children (Study-1); and to neurotypical children (n = 64) with varying levels of autistic traits (Study-2). Across both studies, autistic features were associated with longer looks to the repeating stimulus, and shorter looks to the changing stimulus, but only for more complex stimuli, indicating greater difficulty in processing complex or unpredictable information.

Magic Curiosity Arousing Tricks (MagicCATs): A novel stimulus collection to induce epistemic emotions

There has been considerable interest in empirical research on epistemic emotions, i.e., emotions related to knowledge-generating qualities of cognitive tasks and activities such as curiosity, interest, and surprise. One big challenge when studying epistemic emotions is systematically inducting these emotions in restricted experimental settings. The current study created a novel stimulus set called Magic Curiosity Arousing Tricks (MagicCATs): a collection of 166 short magic trick video clips that aim to induce a variety of epistemic emotions. MagicCATs are freely available for research and can be used in a variety of ways to examine epistemic emotions. Rating data also support that the magic tricks elicit a variety of epistemic emotions with sufficient inter-stimulus variability, demonstrating good psychometric properties for their use in psychological experiments.

Intrinsic motivation in patients with Parkinson's disease: a neuropsychological investigation of curiosity using dopamine transporter imaging

Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are believed to involve brain regions that are innervated by the dopaminergic pathway. Although dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain deteriorate in Parkinson's disease (PD), it remains unclear whether intrinsic motivation is impaired in PD patients. To address this issue, we investigated intrinsic motivation in PD patients using a task designed to assess the "Pandora effect," which constitutes a curiosity for resolving uncertainty, even if this curiosity is likely to result in negative consequences. Twenty-seven PD patients and 27 age-matched healthy controls (HCs) completed a curiosity task in which they were required to decide either to view or skip negative pictures (e.g., snakes, spiders) and an examination battery that included the Mini-Mental State Examination, a verbal fluency test, the Trail Making Test, 10-word recall tests, and questionnaires for behavioral inhibition/activation and depression. DaTSCAN images to assess the distribution of dopamine transporters in the striatum were acquired only from PD patients. The results revealed that PD patients, relative to the HCs, viewed the pictures less frequently under both the certain and uncertain conditions. However, both the PD patients and HCs viewed the pictures at a higher frequency under the uncertain condition than under the certain condition. In the PD patients, the proportion of pictures viewed under the certain condition was positively correlated with the distribution of dopamine transporters in the striatum. These results suggest that despite the overall decreasing level of interest in viewing negative pictures, the motivation to resolve uncertainty is relatively intact in PD patients.

Data Triangulation in Consumer Neuroscience: Integrating Functional Neuroimaging With Meta-Analyses, Psychometrics, and Behavioral Data

This article reviews a wide range of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies conducted in the field of consumer neuroscience to (1) highlight common interpretative approaches of neuroimaging data (i.e., forward inference and reverse inference), (2) discuss potential interpretative issues associated with these approaches, and (3) provide a framework that employs a multi-method approach aimed to possibly raise the explanatory power and, thus, the validity of functional neuroimaging research in consumer neuroscience. Based on this framework, we argue that the validity of fMRI studies can be improved by the triangulation of (1) careful design of neuroimaging studies and analyses of data, (2) meta-analyses, and (3) the integration of psychometric and behavioral data with neuroimaging data. Guidelines on when and how to employ triangulation methods on neuroimaging data are included. Moreover, we also included discussions on practices and research directions that validate fMRI studies in consumer neuroscience beyond data triangulation.

The rhythm of learning: Theta oscillations as an index of active learning in infancy

Active learning is a critical component of human development, however, the mechanisms supporting it are not fully understood. Given that early learning experiences may affect both infants' immediate learning success, as well as their motivation to learn, it is particularly important to investigate the mechanisms of active learning in this period, when the foundations of learning habits and curiosity are built. Traditional behavioural approaches of studying infant learning face challenges that emerging tools from neuroscience may help relieve. We introduce one such tool, EEG theta oscillations, and propose this neural marker has great potential for offering novel insights into active learning. Theta activity, recorded prior to or during learning, has been shown to be predictive of learning success. We argue that this involvement in memory formation, combined with theta activity's tight association with reward processing, makes theta oscillations a uniquely suited tool for the investigation of motivational mechanisms underlying active learning. We outline research questions as well as methodological approaches pertinent to infant learning and suggest how and why theta oscillations may offer complementary insights. As such, we aim to bridge the gap between cognitive and neural approaches, and advance our knowledge of active learning in development more broadly.