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Cited by 264

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 13 of the 13 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Curiosity and reward: Valence predicts choice and information prediction errors enhance learning.

Open access
Marvin, Caroline B., Shohamy, Daphna·2016·Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Abstract

Curiosity drives many of our daily pursuits and interactions; yet, we know surprisingly little about how it works. Here, we harness an idea implied in many conceptualizations of curiosity: that information has value in and of itself. Reframing curiosity as the motivation to obtain reward-where the reward is information-allows one to leverage major advances in theoretical and computational mechanisms of reward-motivated learning. We provide new evidence supporting 2 predictions that emerge from this framework. First, we find an asymmetric effect of positive versus negative information, with positive information enhancing both curiosity and long-term memory for information. Second, we find that it is not the absolute value of information that drives learning but, rather, the gap between the reward expected and reward received, an "information prediction error." These results support the idea that information functions as a reward, much like money or food, guiding choices and driving learning in systematic ways.

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Metadata

Authors
Marvin, C. B., & Shohamy, D.
Venue
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Published
2016-03
Volume
145
Issue
3
Pages
266-272
ISSN
  • 0096-3445 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-2222
OpenAlex
W2433308118
Cited by
264
References
13
FWCI
23.29
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
hybrid

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Curiosity and reward: Valence predicts choice and information prediction errors enhance learning. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037/xge0000140
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Marvin, C. B., & Shohamy, D. (2016). Curiosity and reward: Valence predicts choice and information prediction errors enhance learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000140

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

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