Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708.
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Oct 24;120(43):e2301974120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2301974120. Epub 2023 Oct 16.
When people feel curious, they often seek information to resolve their curiosity. Reaching resolution, however, does not always occur in a single step but instead may follow the accumulation of information over time. Here, we investigated changes in curiosity over a dynamic information-gathering process and how these changes related to affective and cognitive states as well as behavior. Human participants performed an Evolving Line Drawing Task, during which they reported guesses about the drawings' identities and made choices about whether to keep watching. In Study 1, the timing of choices was predetermined and externally imposed, while in Study 2, participants had agency in the timing of guesses and choices. Using this dynamic paradigm, we found that even within a single information-gathering episode, curiosity evolved in concert with other emotional states and with confidence. In both studies, we showed that the relationship between curiosity and confidence depended on stimulus entropy (unique guesses across participants) and on guess accuracy. We demonstrated that curiosity is multifaceted and can be experienced as either positive or negative depending on the state of information gathering. Critically, even when given the choice to alleviate uncertainty immediately (i.e., view a spoiler), higher curiosity promoted continuing to engage in the information-gathering process. Collectively, we show that curiosity changes over information accumulation to drive engagement with external stimuli, rather than to shortcut the path to resolution, highlighting the value inherent in the process of discovery.
当人们感到好奇时，他们通常会寻找信息来满足好奇心。然而，解决问题并不总是一蹴而就的，而是可能随着时间的推移而逐渐积累信息。在这里，我们研究了在动态信息收集过程中好奇心的变化，以及这些变化如何与情感和认知状态以及行为相关。人类参与者进行了一个不断发展的线条绘图任务，在此期间，他们报告了对这些画作身份的猜测，并对是否继续观看做出了选择。在研究 1 中，选择的时间是预先确定的和外部强加的，而在研究 2 中，参与者有时间安排猜测和选择的主动权。使用这种动态范式，我们发现，即使在单个信息收集过程中，好奇心也会随着其他情绪状态和信心的变化而变化。在这两项研究中，我们都表明，好奇心和信心之间的关系取决于刺激熵（参与者之间的独特猜测）和猜测的准确性。我们证明了好奇心是多方面的，可以根据信息收集的状态体验为积极或消极。至关重要的是，即使有选择立即缓解不确定性（即观看剧透），更高的好奇心也会促使人们继续参与信息收集过程。总的来说，我们表明，好奇心会随着信息的积累而变化，从而推动人们与外部刺激互动，而不是为了解决问题而走捷径，突出了发现过程中固有的价值。
