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Quality related to inquisitive thinking

Curiosity (from Latin [[wikt:curiositas#Latin, from cūriōsus "careful, diligent, curious", akin to cura "care") is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident in humans and animals. Curiosity helps human development, from which derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill. The term curiosity can also denote the behavior, characteristic, or emotion of being curious, in regard to the desire to gain knowledge or information. Curiosity as a behavior and emotion is the driving force behind human development, such as progress in science, language, and industry. Curiosity can be considered to be an evolutionary adaptation based on an organism's ability to learn. Certain curious animals (namely, corvids, octopuses, dolphins, elephants, rats, etc.) will pursue information in order to adapt to their surrounding and learn how things work. This behavior is known as neophilia, the love of new things. For animals, a fear of the unknown or the new, neophobia, is much more common, especially later in life.

Many species display curiosity including apes, cats, and rodents. through adulthood. Early definitions of curiosity call it a motivated desire for information. This motivational desire has been said to stem from a passion or an appetite for knowledge, information, and understanding. Traditional ideas of curiosity have expanded to consider the difference between perceptual curiosity, as the innate exploratory behavior that is present in all animals, and epistemic curiosity, as the desire for knowledge that is specifically attributed to humans. Daniel Berlyne recognized three classes of variables playing a role in evoking curiosity: psychophysical variables, ecological variables, and collative variables. Psychophysical variables correspond to physical intensity, ecological variables to motivational significance and task relevance. Collative variables 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: novelty, complexity, uncertainty, and conflict (though he suggested that all collative variables probably involve conflict). Additionally, he considered three variables supplementary to novelty: 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"). suggested that curiosity also includes verbal activities, such as asking questions, and symbolic activities, consisting of internally fueled mental processes such as thinking ("epistemic exploration").

Like other desires and need states that take on an appetitive quality (e. g. food/hunger), curiosity is linked with exploratory behavior and experiences of reward. Curiosity can be described in terms of positive emotions and acquiring knowledge; when one's curiosity has been aroused it is considered inherently rewarding and pleasurable. Discovering new information may also be rewarding because it can help reduce undesirable states of uncertainty rather than stimulating interest. Theories have arisen in attempts to further understand this need to rectify states of uncertainty and the desire to participate in pleasurable experiences of exploratory behaviors.

Curiosity drive theory posits undesirable experiences of "uncertainty" and "ambiguity". The reduction of these unpleasant feelings is rewarding. This theory suggests that people desire coherence and understanding in their thought processes. When this coherence is disrupted by something that is unfamiliar, uncertain, or ambiguous, an individual's curiosity drive causes them to collect information and knowledge of the unfamiliar to restore coherent thought processes. This theory suggests that curiosity is developed out of the desire to make sense of unfamiliar aspects of one's environment through exploratory behaviors. Once understanding of the unfamiliar has been achieved and coherence has been restored, these behaviors and desires subside. Derivations of curiosity drive theory differ on whether curiosity is a primary or secondary drive and if this curiosity drive originates due to one's need to make sense of and regulate one's environment or if it is caused by an external stimulus. Causes can range from basic needs that need to be satisfied (e. g. hunger, thirst) to needs in fear induced situations. This type of exploratory behavior, too, is common in many species. A human toddler, if bored in his current situation devoid of arousing stimuli, will walk about until he finds something interesting. The observation of curiosity even in the absence of novel stimuli pinpoints one of the major shortcomings in the curiosity drive model.

Optimal arousal theory developed out of the need to explain this desire to seek out opportunities to engage in exploratory behaviors without the presence of uncertain or ambiguous situations. Optimal arousal suggests that one can be motivated to maintain a pleasurable sense of arousal through such exploratory behaviors. Similar to optimal arousal theory, cognitive consistency theory suggests that there is a tendency to maintain arousal at a preferred, or expected, level, but it also explicitly links the amount of arousal to the amount of experienced inconsistency between an expected situation and the actually perceived situation. When this inconsistency is small, exploratory behavior triggered by curiosity is employed to gather information with which expectancy can be updated through learning to match perception, thereby reducing inconsistency. This approach associates curiosity with aggression and fear. If the inconsistency is larger, fear or aggressive behavior may be employed to alter the perception in order to make it match expectancy, depending on the size of the inconsistency as well as the specific context. Aggressive behavior alters perception by forcefully manipulating it into matching the expected situation, while fear prompts flight, which removes the inconsistent stimulus from the perceptual field and thus resolves the inconsistency. This theory from neurobiology can supplement curiosity drive theory by explaining the motivation of exploratory behavior.

Although curiosity is widely regarded, its root causes are largely empirically unknown. However, some studies have provided insight into the neurological mechanisms that make up what is known as the reward pathway which may influence characteristics associated with curiosity, such as learning, memory, and motivation. Due to the complex nature of curiosity, research that focuses on specific neural processes with these characteristics can help us understand of the phenomenon of curiosity as a whole. The following are descriptions of characteristics of curiosity and their links to neurological aspects that are essential in creating exploratory behaviors:

The drive to learn new information or perform some action may be prompted by the anticipation of reward. So what we learn about motivation and reward may help us to understand curiosity.

Regions of the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex both conflict and arousal and, as such, seem to reinforce certain exploratory models of curiosity.

Cortisol is a chemical known for its role in stress regulation. However, cortisol may also be associated with curious or exploratory behavior. Studies suggesting a role of cortisol in curiosity support optimal arousal theory. They suggest the release of some cortisol, causing some stress, encourages curious behavior, while too much stress can initiate a "back away" response.

Attention is important to curiosity because it allows one to selectively focus and concentrate on particular stimuli in the surrounding environment. As there are limited cognitive and sensory resources to understand and evaluate stimuli, attention allows the brain to better focus on what it perceives to be the most important or relevant of these stimuli. Individuals tend to focus on stimuli that are particularly stimulating or engaging. The more attention a stimulus garners, the more frequent one's energy and focus will be directed towards that stimulus. This suggests an individual will focus on new or unfamiliar stimuli in an effort to better understand or make sense of the unknown, rather than on more familiar or repetitive stimuli.

Memory plays an important role in curiosity. Memory is how the brain stores and accesses stored information. If curiosity is the desire to seek out and understand unfamiliar or novel stimuli, memory helps determine if the stimulus is indeed unfamiliar. In order to determine if a stimulus is novel, an individual must remember if the stimulus has been encountered before. Curiosity may also affect memory. Stimuli that are novel tend to capture more of our attention. Additionally, novel stimuli usually have a reward value associated with them, the anticipated reward of what learning that new information may bring. With stronger associations and more attention devoted to a stimulus, it is probable that the memory formed from that stimulus will be longer lasting and easier to recall, both of which facilitate better learning.

The hippocampus is important in memory formation and recall and therefore in determining the novelty of various stimuli. Research suggests the hippocampus is involved in generating the motivation to explore for the purpose of learning. The parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), an area of grey matter surrounding the hippocampus, has been implicated in the amplification of curiosity.

The amygdala is associated with emotional processing, particularly for the emotion of fear, as well as memory. It is important in processing emotional reactions towards novel or unexpected stimuli and the induction of exploratory behavior. This suggests a connection between curiosity levels and the amygdala. However, more research is needed on direct correlation.

Jean Piaget argued that babies and children constantly try to make sense of their reality and that this contributes to their intellectual development. According to Piaget, children develop hypotheses, conduct experiments, and then reassess their hypotheses depending on what they observe. Piaget was the first to closely document children's actions and interpret them as consistent, calculated efforts to test and learn about their environment. There is no universally accepted definition for curiosity in children. Most research on curiosity focused on adults and used self report measures that are inappropriate and inapplicable for studying children. Exploratory behaviour is commonly observed in children and is associated with their curiosity development. Several studies of children's curiosity simply observe their interaction with novel and familiar toys. It has also been considered an important moral virtue, as curiosity can help humans find meaning in their lives and to cultivate a sense of care about others and things in the world. When curiosity in young people leads to knowledge gathering it is widely seen as a positive. Due to the importance of curiosity, people debate about whether contemporary societies effectively cultivate the right type of curiosity. Some believe that children's curiosity is discouraged throughout the process of formal education: "Children are born scientists. From the first ball they send flying to the ant they watch carry a crumb, children use science's tools—enthusiasm, hypotheses, tests, conclusions—to uncover the world's mysteries. But somehow students seem to lose what once came naturally."

Social curiosity is defined as a drive to understand one's environment as it relates to sociality with others. Such curiosity plays a role in one's ability to successfully navigate social interactions by perceiving and processing one's own behavior and the behavior of others. It also plays a role in helping one adapt to varying social situations.

Morbid curiosity is focused on death, violence, or any other event that may cause harm physically or emotionally. It typically is described as having an addictive quality, associated with a need to understand or make sense of topics that surround harm, violence, or death. This can be attributed to one's need to relate unusual and often difficult circumstances to a primary emotion or experience of one's own, described as meta emotions. Interest in human curiosity about difficult circumstances dates back to Aristotle in his Poetics, in which he noted, "We enjoy and admire paintings of objects that in themselves would annoy or disgust us."

Curiosity can be a temporary state of being, or a stable trait in an individual. State curiosity is external—wondering why things happen just for the sake of curiousness, for example wondering why most stores open at 8 a. m. Trait curiosity describes people who are interested in learning, for example by trying out a new sport or food, or traveling to an unfamiliar place. One can look at curiosity as the urge that draws people out of their comfort zones and fears as the agents that keep them within those zones.

AI agents can exhibit curiosity through intrinsic motivation. This can be improve the success of an AI agent at various tasks. In artificial intelligence, curiosity is typically defined quantitatively, as the uncertainty the agent has in predicting its own actions given its current state. In 2019, a study trained AI agents to play video games, but they were rewarded only for The agents reliably learned advantageous game behaviors based solely on the curiosity reward.