Health & Medicine
Curiosity May Kill the Cat, but It's Also Key to Learning by Changing Our Brains
Catherine Griffin
First Posted: Oct 06, 2014 06:55 AM EDT
Curiosity may be the key to learning something new. Scientists have found that the more curious we are about the topic, the easier it is to learn information about it. The new findings could help scientists find ways to enhance overall learning and memory in both healthy individuals and those with neurological conditions.
In order to see what role curiosity has to play when it comes to learning, the scientists recruited healthy participants. The volunteers rated their curiosity to learn the answers to a series of trivia questions. When they were later presented with a selected trivia question, there was a 14 second delay before the answer was provided. During this time, the volunteers were shown a picture of a neutral, unrelated face. After, they performed a surprise recognition memory test for the faces that were presented, followed by a memory test for the answers to the trivia questions. The participants' brains were also scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging.
So what did they find? It turns out when people were curious to find out an answer, they were better at learning the information. In addition, once their curiosity was aroused, they showed better learning of entirely unrelated information, such as the face recognition. They were also better able to retain the information learned while curious during a 24-hour delay.
That's not all, either. When curiosity motivated learning, there was increased activity in the hippocampus, which is a region of the brain associated with forming new memories, in addition to increased interactions between the hippocampus and the reward circuit.
"We showed that intrinsic motivation actually recruits the very same brain areas that are heavily involved in tangible, extrinsic motivation," said Matthias Gruber, one of the researchers, in a news release.
The findings could have implications for creating new learning strategies for those with neurological issues and also for healthy individuals. In fact, it could have implications for classroom learning and even in the workplace.
The findings are published in the journal Neuron.
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First Posted: Oct 06, 2014 06:55 AM EDT
Curiosity may be the key to learning something new. Scientists have found that the more curious we are about the topic, the easier it is to learn information about it. The new findings could help scientists find ways to enhance overall learning and memory in both healthy individuals and those with neurological conditions.
In order to see what role curiosity has to play when it comes to learning, the scientists recruited healthy participants. The volunteers rated their curiosity to learn the answers to a series of trivia questions. When they were later presented with a selected trivia question, there was a 14 second delay before the answer was provided. During this time, the volunteers were shown a picture of a neutral, unrelated face. After, they performed a surprise recognition memory test for the faces that were presented, followed by a memory test for the answers to the trivia questions. The participants' brains were also scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging.
So what did they find? It turns out when people were curious to find out an answer, they were better at learning the information. In addition, once their curiosity was aroused, they showed better learning of entirely unrelated information, such as the face recognition. They were also better able to retain the information learned while curious during a 24-hour delay.
That's not all, either. When curiosity motivated learning, there was increased activity in the hippocampus, which is a region of the brain associated with forming new memories, in addition to increased interactions between the hippocampus and the reward circuit.
"We showed that intrinsic motivation actually recruits the very same brain areas that are heavily involved in tangible, extrinsic motivation," said Matthias Gruber, one of the researchers, in a news release.
The findings could have implications for creating new learning strategies for those with neurological issues and also for healthy individuals. In fact, it could have implications for classroom learning and even in the workplace.
The findings are published in the journal Neuron.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone