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Article

The seductive lure of curiosity: information as a motivationally salient reward

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Citation

FitzGibbon L, Lau JKL & Murayama K (2020) The seductive lure of curiosity: information as a motivationally salient reward. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 35, pp. 21-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.05.014

Abstract
Humans are known to seek non-instrumental information, sometimes expending considerable effort or taking risks to receive it, for example, ¡®curiosity killed the cat¡¯. This suggests that information is highly motivationally salient. In the current article, we first review recent empirical studies that demonstrated the strong motivational lure of curiosity ¨C people will pay and risk electric shocks for non-instrumental information; and request information that has negative emotional consequences. Then we suggest that this seductive lure of curiosity may reflect a motivational mechanism that has been discussed in the literature of reward learning: incentive salience. We present behavioral and neuroscientific evidence in support of this idea and propose two areas requiring further investigation ¨C how incentive salience for information is instigated; and individual differences in motivational vigor.

Keywords
Behavioral Neuroscience; Psychiatry and Mental health; Cognitive Neuroscience

Journal
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences: Volume 35

StatusPublished
Funders and
Publication date31/10/2020
Publication date online31/07/2020
URL
PublisherElsevier BV
ISSN2352-1546

People (1)

Dr Lily FitzGibbon

Dr Lily FitzGibbon

Lecturer in Psychology, Psychology

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