I want to know why this feels so familiar: Familiarity-detection during recall failure prompts curiosity and...

According to the Region of Proximal Learning framework, curiosity emerges when there is a feeling of almost knowing a piece of information-but what leads to a feeling of almost knowing? Here, we demonstrate that cue familiarity-detection increases curiosity. We used the recognition without cued recall method to experimentally manipulate cue familiarity during recall failure. Consistent with prior research, our manipulation was successful at increasing perceived cue familiarity during recall failure. Importantly, curiosity ratings during recall failure increased with greater cue familiarization. Expenditure of limited opportunities to discover the source of any perceived cue familiarity also increased with cue familiarization. These results indicate that familiarity-detection can drive feelings of curiosity and information-seeking behavior, suggesting that one contributor to a feeling of almost knowing may be detecting familiarity. We also found evidence of increased internal memory search effort regarding the source of familiarity; commission errors (a possible proxy for retrieval search effort) increased as cue familiarity was experimentally increased.