Curiosity

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"Curious" redirects here. For other uses, see Curious (disambiguation) and Curiosity
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Part of a series on

Emotions

 Acceptance
 Affection
 Amusement
 Anger
 Angst
 Anguish
 Annoyance
 Anticipation
 Anxiety
 Apathy
 Arousal
 Awe
 Boredom
 Confidence
 Contempt
 Contentment
 Courage
  Curiosity
 Depression
 Desire
 Disappointment
 Disgust
 Distrust
 Doubt
 Ecstasy
 Embarrassment
 Empathy
 Enthusiasm
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  Pity
 Pleasure
 Pride
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 Regret
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 Remorse
 Resentment
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 Trust
 Wonder
 Worry

 v
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 e

Curious children gather around photographer Toni Frissell, looking at her camera (circa 1945)

Curiosity (from Latin cūriōsitās, from cūriōsus "careful, diligent, curious", akin

to cura "care") is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration,
investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans and other animals. [1]
[2]
 Curiosity is heavily associated with all aspects of human development, in which
derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill.[3]
The term curiosity can also be used to denote the behavior or emotion of being curious,
in regard to the desire to gain knowledge or information. Curiosity as a behavior and
emotion is attributed over millennia as the driving force behind not only human
development, but developments in science, language, and industry. [4]

Contents

 1Causes
 2Curiosity-driven behavior
 3Theories
o 3.1Curiosity-drive theory
o 3.2Optimal-arousal theory
o 3.3Cognitive-consistency theory
o 3.4Integration of the reward pathway into theory
 4Role of neurological aspects and structures
o 4.1Motivation and reward
 4.1.1Nucleus accumbens
 4.1.2Caudate nucleus
 4.1.3Anterior cortices
 4.1.4Cortisol
o 4.2Attention
 4.2.1Striatum
 4.2.2Precuneus
o 4.3Memory and learning
 4.3.1Hippocampus and the parahippocampal gyrus
 4.3.2Amygdala
 5Early development
 6Ethicality
 7Impact from disease
 8Morbid curiosity
 9State and trait curiosity
 10Curiosity in artificial intelligence
 11See also
 12References
 13Further reading

Causes[edit]
Children peer over shoulders to see what their friends are reading.

Curiosity can be seen as an innate quality of many different species. It is common to

human beings at all ages from infancy[5] through adulthood,[1] and is easy to observe in
many other animal species; these include apes, cats, and rodents.[2] Early definitions cite
curiosity as a motivated desire for information.[6] This motivational desire has been said
to stem from a passion or an appetite for knowledge, information, and understanding.
These traditional ideas of curiosity have recently expanded to look at the difference
between curiosity as the innate exploratory behavior that is present in all animals
and curiosity as the desire for knowledge that is specifically attributed to humans.[according to
whom?]

Daniel Berlyne[7] recognized three major variables playing a role in evoking curiosity;

namely, psychophysical variables, ecological variables, and collative variables.
Psychophysical variables correspond to physical intensity, while ecological variables to
motivational significance and task relevance. Collative variables are called “collative”
because they involve a comparison between different stimuli or features, which may be
actually perceived or which may be recalled from memory. Berlyne mentioned four
collative variables; namely, novelty, complexity, uncertainty, and conflict. At the same
time, he suggested that all collative variables probably involve conflict. Additionally, he
considered three variables supplementary to novelty, namely change, surprisingness,
and incongruity. Finally, curiosity may not only be aroused by the perception of some
stimulus associated with the aforementioned variables ("specific exploration"), but also
by a lack of stimulation, out of “boredom” ("diversive exploration").[7]