Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, 240 Skirkanich Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Neuroscience Graduate Group, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 421 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Sci Adv. 2024 Oct 25;10(43):eadn3268. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adn3268.
Intrinsically motivated information seeking is an expression of curiosity believed to be central to human nature. However, most curiosity research relies on small, Western convenience samples. Here, we analyze a naturalistic population of 482,760 readers using Wikipedia's mobile app in 14 languages from 50 countries or territories. By measuring the structure of knowledge networks constructed by readers weaving a thread through articles in Wikipedia, we replicate two styles of curiosity previously identified in laboratory studies: the nomadic "busybody" and the targeted "hunter." Further, we find evidence for another style-the "dancer"-which was previously predicted by a historico-philosophical examination of texts over two millennia and is characterized by creative modes of knowledge production. We identify associations, globally, between the structure of knowledge networks and population-level indicators of spatial navigation, education, mood, well-being, and inequality. These results advance our understanding of Wikipedia's global readership and demonstrate how cultural and geographical properties of the digital environment relate to different styles of curiosity.
内在动机的信息寻求是好奇心的一种表现，被认为是人类本性的核心。然而，大多数好奇心研究依赖于小的、西方便利样本。在这里，我们使用 50 个国家或地区的 14 种语言，分析了维基百科移动应用程序中 482760 名读者的自然人群。通过测量读者通过在维基百科文章中编织一条线构建的知识网络的结构，我们复制了实验室研究中之前确定的两种好奇心风格：游牧式的“多管闲事者”和目标明确的“猎人”。此外，我们还发现了另一种风格的“舞者”的证据，这是在对两千多年的文本进行历史哲学考察后预先预测的，其特点是创造性的知识生产模式。我们在全球范围内确定了知识网络结构与人口水平指标（如空间导航、教育、情绪、幸福感和不平等）之间的关联。这些结果增进了我们对维基百科全球读者的理解，并展示了数字环境的文化和地理特性如何与不同的好奇心风格相关。
