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A functional approach to explanation-seeking curiosity
Emily G Liquin1, Tania Lombrozo1
1Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Peretsman Scully Hall, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
Cognitive Psychology
|February 17, 2020
Summary
Explanation-seeking curiosity (ESC) is triggered by expectations of future learning and utility, not just novelty or surprise. This suggests curiosity is driven by anticipated benefits of understanding.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Decision Science
Background:
- Curiosity drives information seeking, but the specific triggers for explanation-seeking curiosity (ESC) are not fully understood.
- Prior work often focuses on backward-looking factors like novelty or surprise.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and test a functional, forward-looking approach to understanding the triggers of explanation-seeking curiosity (ESC).
- To investigate whether ESC is driven by expectations of future benefits from seeking explanations.
Main Methods:
- Three studies (N=867) tested hypotheses derived from a functional approach to ESC.
- Participants' ESC was measured and correlated with various predictive factors.
Main Results:
- ESC was most strongly predicted by expectations about future learning and future utility.
- While novelty, surprise, and information gaps predicted ESC, forward-looking considerations were not reducible to these factors.
- Predictors of ESC clustered into expectations about learning, export of knowledge, and backward-looking considerations.
Conclusions:
- Explanation-seeking curiosity is systematically aroused by forward-looking expectations of how an explanation will improve one's epistemic state.
- This contrasts with fact-seeking curiosity and highlights the role of anticipated downstream consequences in driving the desire for explanation.
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