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Novelty or Surprise?
Open accessAbstract
Novelty and surprise play significant roles in animal behavior and in attempts to understand the neural mechanisms underlying it. They also play important roles in technology, where detecting observations that are novel or surprising is central to many applications, such as medical diagnosis, text processing, surveillance, and security. Theories of motivation, particularly of intrinsic motivation, place novelty and surprise among the primary factors that arouse interest, motivate exploratory or avoidance behavior, and drive learning. In many of these studies, novelty and surprise are not distinguished from one another: the words are used more-or-less interchangeably. However, while undeniably closely related, novelty and surprise are very different. The purpose of this article is first to highlight the differences between novelty and surprise and to discuss how they are related by presenting an extensive review of mathematical and computational proposals related to them, and then to explore the implications of this for understanding behavioral and neuroscience data. We argue that opportunities for improved understanding of behavior and its neural basis are likely being missed by failing to distinguish between novelty and surprise.
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“This underwrites Bayesian experimental design [134] and active learning in statistics [135], intrinsic motivation and artificial curiosity in machine learning and robotics [136, 137, 138, 139, 140].”
From The free energy principle made simpler but not too simple (2023) · cites this paper as [138]
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Active inference models do not contradict folk psychology
Smith, R. S., Ramstead, M. J. D., & Kiefer, A. B. (2022) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-022-03480-w · Cited by 55
“This has been referred to as ‘intrinsic motivation’ (Barto et al., 2013; Oudeyer & Kaplan, 2007; Schmidhuber, 2010) as well as the drive to seek ‘novelty’ (Schwartenbeck et al., 2019), but more generally involves a drive to learn what will be observed when visiting an unfamiliar state.”
BackgroundToward a Unified Socio-Cognitive Framework for Salience in Language
Schmid, H., & Günther, F. (2016) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01110 · Cited by 46
Learning probabilistic neural representations with randomly connected circuits
Maoz, O., Tkačik, G., Esteki, M. S., Kiani, R., & Schneidman, E. (2020) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1912804117 · Cited by 44
Curiosity: primate neural circuits for novelty and information seeking
Monosov, I. E. (2024) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/s41583-023-00784-9 · Cited by 44
“The novelty of places or spaces is processed by a network of brain areas involved in declarative memory, such as the hippocampus and the mammillary region of the hypothalamus 28,37,142–148 .”
Designing ecosystems of intelligence from first principles
Friston, K. J., Ramstead, M. J. D., Kiefer, A. B., Tschantz, A., Buckley, C. L., Albarracin, M., Pitliya, R. J., Heins, C., Klein, B., Millidge, B., et al. (2024) · Collective Intelligence · doi:10.1177/26339137231222481 · Cited by 80
“…to reduce uncertainty in the variables and parameters that de fi ne your model, which, in the active inference formulation, corresponds to inference and learning, respectively (Barto et al., 2013; Lindley, 1956; MacKay, 1992; Schmidhuber, 2006; Schwartenbeck et al., 2019; Still and Precup, 2012).”
BackgroundUnconscious perception of one's own name modulates amplitude of the P3B ERP component
Doradzińska, Ł., Wójcik, M. J., Paź, M., Nowicka, M. M., Nowicka, A., & Bola, M. (2020) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107564 · Cited by 48
“…using a range of stimuli and experimental manipulations, demonstrated that the amplitude of the P3b faithfully reflects visual awareness (Vogel et al., 1998; Fernandez-Duque et al., 2003; Sergent et al., 2005; Del Cul et al., 2007; Gaillard et al., 2009; Lamy et al., 2009; Batterink et al., 2012).”
BackgroundGottlieb, J. P., Lopes, M. C., & Oudeyer, P. (2016) · Advances in motivation and achievement · doi:10.1108/s0749-742320160000019017 · Cited by 48
“…2000; Laurent, 2008; Bianca C Wittmann, Bunzeck, Dolan, & Düzel, 2007; B. C. Wittmann, Daw, Seymour, & Dolan, 2008), and provides a bonus for organizing reward-based exploration (Barto et al., 2013; Brafman & Tennenholtz, 2003; Kakade & Dayan, 2002; Laurent, 2008; Manuel Lopes & Oudeyer, 2012).”
BackgroundAn Investigation of the Free Energy Principle for Emotion Recognition
Demekas, D., Parr, T., & Friston, K. J. (2020) · Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fncom.2020.00030 · Cited by 44
“…to sample outcomes that are relevant to the task at hand, even if they are associated with high uncertainty, which is an emergent behavior under the minimization of expected free energy (Barto et al., 2013; Schwartenbeck et al., 2013, 2019; Friston et al., 2015b, 2017c; Limanowski et al., 2015).”
BackgroundPerceived Novelty Support and Psychological Needs Satisfaction in Physical Education
Fierro-Suero, S., Almagro, B. J., Buñuel, P. S.-L., & Carmona, J. (2020) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph17114169 · Cited by 41
Prior probabilities modulate cortical surprise responses: A study of event-related potentials
Seer, C., Lange, F., Boos, M., Dengler, R., & Kopp, B. (2016) · Brain and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2016.04.011 · Cited by 40
Novelty is not surprise: Human exploratory and adaptive behavior in sequential decision-making
He, X., Modirshanechi, A., Lehmann, M. P., Wulfram Gerstner, B., & Herzog, M. H. (2021) · PLoS Computational Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009070 · Cited by 49
“This is consistent with ideas that novelty is more related to memory-recall and surprise is more related to predictions [35].”
InfluentialElectroencephalographic correlates of temporal Bayesian belief updating and surprise
Visalli, A., Capizzi, M., Ambrosini, E., Kopp, B., & Vallesi, A. (2021) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117867 · Cited by 44
Turner, D. P., Lebowitz, A. D., Chtay, I., & Houle, T. T. (2019) · Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain · doi:10.1111/head.13507 · Cited by 39
“In learning contexts, surprising information plays a key role and enhances association strength.(27) In biological terms, environmental surprise (eg, hotter than usual, less food, infection) is often analogous with threat, and the primary purpose of the brain has been posited as one of reducing uncertainty or surprise…”
BackgroundWhy the standard definition of creativity fails to capture the creative act
Abraham, A. (2024) · Theory & Psychology · doi:10.1177/09593543241290232 · Cited by 51
“The conceptual conflation between novelty and surprise is a problem that has been noted in several fields of inquiry within behavioral and brain sciences (Barto et al., 2013; Modirshanechi et al., 2023).”
Order and change in art: towards an active inference account of aesthetic experience
de Cruys, S. V., Frascaroli, J., & Friston, K. J. (2023) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2022.0411 · Cited by 44
Reward maximization through discrete active inference
Da Costa, L., Sajid, N., Parr, T., Friston, K., & Smith, R. (2023) · Neural Computation · doi:10.1162/neco_a_01574 · Cited by 35
“This underwrites intrinsic motivation in machine learning and robotics (Barto et al., 2013; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Oudeyer & Kaplan, 2007) and expected Bayesian surprise in visual search (Itti & Baldi, 2009; Sun et al., 2011) and the organization of our visual apparatus (Barlow, 1961, 1974; Linsker,…”
BackgroundAI Autonomy: Self‐initiated Open‐world Continual Learning and Adaptation
Liu, B., Mazumder, S., Robertson, E., & Grigsby, S. (2023) · AI Magazine · doi:10.1002/aaai.12087 · Cited by 50
“Novelty-based IMs try to detect novel items and direct attention to novel items in exploration.”
BackgroundInfluentialSensorimotor Contingencies as a Key Drive of Development: From Babies to Robots
Jacquey, L., Baldassarre, G., Santucci, V. G., & O'Regan, J. K. (2019) · Frontiers in Neurorobotics · doi:10.3389/fnbot.2019.00098 · Cited by 33
“Another possibility is to use intrinsic motivations such as novelty or surprise , i.e., to consider as interesting those effects of actions that respectively have never/rarely been experienced before, or that violate expectations (Barto et al., 2013).”
BackgroundSelf-citationAttention in the predictive mind
Ransom, M., Fazelpour, S., & Mole, C. (2016) · Consciousness and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.concog.2016.06.011 · Cited by 36
Polysemy, Diachrony, and the Circle of Cognition
Fortescue, M. (2020) · BRILL eBooks · doi:10.1163/9789004449527 · Cited by 33
Fradkin, I., Ludwig, C. J. H., Eldar, E., & Huppert, J. D. (2020) · PLoS Computational Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007634 · Cited by 35
Wessel, J. R., & Huber, D. E. (2019) · PLoS Computational Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006927 · Cited by 30
“There is a subtle but important distinction between surprise and novelty [40]: novelty is thought to describe a specific stimulus that is not already present in the memory system [41], whereas surprise is a violation of prediction.”
BackgroundOversampled and undersolved: Depressive rumination from an active inference perspective
Berg, M., Feldmann, M., Kirchner, L., & Κube, T. (2022) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104873 · Cited by 36
Predictions in the eye of the beholder: an active inference account of Watt governors
Baltieri, M., Buckley, C. L., & Bruineberg, J. P. (2020) · Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE) · doi:10.1162/isal_a_00288 · Cited by 32
“, a Bayesian inference process conditioned on a system’s norms, such as its survival and very existence (Barto et al., 2013; Baltieri, 2019)).”
BackgroundSynthesising boredom: a predictive processing approach
Darling, T. (2023) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-023-04380-3 · Cited by 30
“…creativity and fun (e.g. Schmidhuber, 1991, 2010), as a component of intrinsic motivation networks that aim toward maxi-mising epistemic (or informational) gain (e.g. Baldassarre & Mirolli, 2013; Barto et al., 2013; Friston et al., 2017a; Gottlieb et al., 2013 ; Schwartenbeck et al., 2013).”
Surprise and recency in novelty detection in the primate brain
Zhang, K., Bromberg-Martin, E. S., Sogukpinar, F., Kocher, K., & Monosov, I. E. (2022) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2022.03.064 · Cited by 27
Smedegaard, C. V. (2022) · Frontiers in Robotics and AI · doi:10.3389/frobt.2022.741478 · Cited by 31
“…on novelty assessment and processing focuses on testing-paradigms that employ instances of novelty based either on being “ atypical ” or “ deviant ” from the rest of the presented stimuli, or on not having been presented before within the context of the study (Habib 2000; Barto et al., 2013).”
BackgroundInfluentialMobile language app learners’ self-efficacy increases after using generative AI
Kittredge, A. K., Hopman, E. W. M., Reuveni, B., Dionne, D. M., Freeman, C., & Jiang, X. (2025) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2025.1499497 · Cited by 27
“These results are also broadly consistent with research demonstrating that novelty enhances attention, memory, learning, and perceived value (Barto et al., 2013; Kagan, 2009; Blut et al., 2023; Sánchez-Fernández and Iniesta-Bonillo, 2007; Leroi-Werelds, 2019; Wells et al., 2010).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Barto, A., Mirolli, M., & Baldassarre, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- National Research Council (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Barto, Andrew
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2013
- Volume
- 4
- Pages
- 907-907
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3858647
- OpenAlex
- W2085754318
- Cited by
- 397
- References
- 107
- Citations by year
- 2026: 58 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 44 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 51 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 44 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 13.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- European Commission (231722)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychological and Educational Research Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Keywords
- novelty, surprise, intrinsic motivation, exploratory behavior, avoidance behavior, learning, psychobiology, novelty detection
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