In order to understand how curiosity works in any given case, we need to understand that it varies greatly depending on the particular context.Consider a quiz. In a recent study, researchers found that people were more interested in finding the answers to trivial questions in which they had a moderate level of confidence in their answer. They were less curious about answers when they had a very high or very low level of confidence in their answers. So there is an ideal buy email list place for curiosity.curiosity curvesFrom Kidd & Hayden (2015):(A) Data from Kinney and Kagan (1976). Attention to auditory stimuli shows an inverted U-shaped pattern, with infants making the most fixations to auditory stimuli estimated to be moderately different from auditory stimuli for which infants already possessed mental representations.
(B) Data from Kang et al. (2009). Subjects were more curious about answers to trivial questions for which they were moderately confident about their answers. This model suggests that subjects showed the greatest curiosity for partially coded but not fully coded information.Neuroscientific imagery reveals that curiosity has an effect similar to receiving a reward. New information, or information that fills gaps in our previous knowledge, is treated as a reward by buy email list our brain.This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective; new information helps us better navigate our environments, avoid threats, find food, and more. Throughout our lives, we learn and grow by reducing uncertainty in the world. Our curiosity drives us to interact with uncertain things so that we can gain new information.
The problem of information overloadOne of the problems of the information age is information overload. Our curiosity is not armed with unlimited cognitive buy email list resources, so we are selective about the information we seek. We block far more than we accept.In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , researchers explored how to strategically pique curiosity and overcome our resistance to the overabundance of new information presented to us. Researchers have found that we are much more likely to pay attention to new information when we have experienced a lack of curiosity.