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Cited by 1,026Psychological and Educational Research StudiesReinforcement Learning in RoboticsCreativity in Education and Neuroscience

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 136 of the 136 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity

Open access
Kidd, Celeste, Hayden, Benjamin Y.·2015·Neuron
DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010PMC PMC4635443
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Abstract

Curiosity is a basic element of our cognition, but its biological function, mechanisms, and neural underpinning remain poorly understood. It is nonetheless a motivator for learning, influential in decision-making, and crucial for healthy development. One factor limiting our understanding of it is the lack of a widely agreed upon delineation of what is and is not curiosity. Another factor is the dearth of standardized laboratory tasks that manipulate curiosity in the lab. Despite these barriers, recent years have seen a major growth of interest in both the neuroscience and psychology of curiosity. In this Perspective, we advocate for the importance of the field, provide a selective overview of its current state, and describe tasks that are used to study curiosity and information-seeking. We propose that, rather than worry about defining curiosity, it is more helpful to consider the motivations for information-seeking behavior and to study it in its ethological context.

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Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. Pelz, M., Yung, A., and Kidd, C. (2015). Quantifying curiosity and exploratory play on touchscreen tablets. G. Gordon, J. Jirout, S. Engel, and A. Chang, eds. Proceedings of the IDC 2015 Workshop on Digital Assessment and Promotion of Children’s Curiosity, http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/mpelz/PelzYungKiddIDC2015.pdf.
  2. Wagner, 1986, A process analysis of infant visual and crossmodal recognition memory: implications for an amodal code, Advances in Infancy Research, 4, 195
  3. Yarbus, 1956, The motion of the eye in the process of changing points of fixation, Biofizika, 1, 76

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Metadata

Authors
Kidd, C., & Hayden, B. Y.
Affiliations
University of Rochester (US)
Corresponding author
Hayden, Benjamin Y.
ORCID
Venue
Neuron
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2015-11
Volume
88
Issue
3
Pages
449-460
ISSN
0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010
PMC
PMC4635443
OpenAlex
W2147130840
Cited by
1,026
References
136
Citations by year
2026: 115 · 2025: 156 · 2024: 128 · 2023: 119 · 2022: 128 · 2021: 100 · 2020: 144 · 2019: 60 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 11
FWCI
3.25
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Neuron (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA038615)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychological and Educational Research Studies
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Reinforcement Learning in Robotics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Creativity in Education and Neuroscience
Keywords
curiosity, information seeking, motivation, decision-making, student motivation, ethology
MeSH terms
Cognitive Neuroscience, Animals, Decision Making, Exploratory Behavior, Humans, Learning, Motivation

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