Neural mechanisms underlying the induction and relief of perceptual curiosity

By Marieke Jepma, Rinus G. Verdonschot, H. van Steenbergen, Serge A. R. B. Rombouts, Sander Nieuwenhuis. 2012

254 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Curiosity is one of the most basic biological drives in both animals and humans, and has been identified as a key motive for learning and discovery. Despite the importance of curiosity and related behaviors, the topic has been largely neglected in human neuroscience; hence little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms underlying curiosity. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate what happens in our brain during the induction and subsequent relief of perceptual curiosity. Our core findings were that (1) the induction of perceptual curiosity, through the presentation of ambiguous visual input, activated the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), brain regions sensitive to conflict and arousal; (2) the relief of perceptual curiosity, through visual disambiguation, activated regions of the striatum that have been related to reward processing; and (3) the relief of perceptual curiosity was associated with hippocampal activation and enhanced incidental memory. These findings provide the first demonstration of the neural basis of human perceptual curiosity. Our results provide neurobiological support for a classic psychological theory of curiosity, which holds that curiosity is an aversive condition of increased arousal whose termination is rewarding and facilitates memory.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Homo Curious: Curious or Interested? (2019, background): “In research by Jepma et al. (2012), the activation of brain regions associated with reward processing was observed when participants saw a corresponding clear version of a blurred picture, not an unrelated clear picture.”
A Case for Domain-Specific Curiosity in Mathematics (2019, background): “States of curiosity are accompanied by increased attention and activation of neural circuitry associated with reward processing and arousal (Baranes et al. 2015; Gruber et al. 2014; Jepma et al. 2012; Kang et al. 2009).”
Process Account of Curiosity and Interest: A Reward-Learning Perspective (2018, background): “what a blurred picture represents, activates the reward network in the brain (Brydevall et al. 2018; Jepma et al. 2012; Ligneul et al. 2017).”
The Teasing Effect: An Underappreciated Benefit of Creating and Resolving an Uncertainty (2018, background): “This proposition is consistent with neurological evidence that curiosity resolution activates brain regions responsible for reward processing (Jepma et al. 2012).”