Curiosity & Dopamine.

I’ve become obsessed with the concept of curiosity in the past couple of years but recently I read this google AI blog & I thought if machines can learn effectively by triggering curiosity how effective it will be for humans? Curiosity is a powerful component of learning, yet I knew nothing about it. This unawareness had a serious impact on my ability to learn new skills or gather data for making a decision. There’s plenty of interesting research and resources out there, and I’d like to break down what I’ve learned so far.

Curiosity is powerful!

Well, I know that curiosity is powerful, but I just don’t know how to use this power. I order to use it I thought of first understanding about it.

What is Curiosity, and What Does It Mean?

Let’s start with the ABC of curiosity.

Curiosity is the desire to learn, to understand new things, and to know how they work. Curiosity is like a thirst & you must drink (Water) otherwise you will be uncomfortable. Curiosity can manifest in many ways, as the desire to read the Bombay times (gossip columns) or watch reality shows on TV, or as the desire to know about people and their lives. It can also manifest as the desire to accumulate knowledge about science, geography or other topics, or as the urge to know how to fix things.

Curiosity is the expression of the urge to learn and understand facts and knowledge. It widens the mind and opens it to different opinions, different lifestyles and different topics.

Curious people ask questions, read and explore. They are active about seeking information or experience and are willing to meet challenges and to broaden their horizons. They are not shy to ask questions and delve deeply into the topic that interests them.

I can direct curiosity to gossip and unimportant details, or towards matters that are more important. It can also lead to learning, gaining knowledge, and becoming an expert in one’s field. Curiosity is a vital ingredient for becoming a good journalist, writer, inventor or scientist.

Why Curiosity Is Important for Success?

Curiosity is important for excelling in any job and doing it better, because you ask questions, learn from others, and look for ways to do your job better.

The mind of curious people is active. They want to know and to understand. This puts them in a better position to learn a job and do it better and more creatively, unlike a person who lacks curiosity.

When curious people fail, they analyze their failure, because they are keen on knowing the reasons, so they can well the next time. This increases their chances for success.

Being curious is important for excelling in any job and doing it better, because you ask questions, learn from others, and look for ways to do your job better. If you show more interest in what you are doing, you demonstrate your care and want to learn and progress.

“When curiosity is alive, it attracts us to many things; we discover many worlds.”–Eric Booth.

Children are often curious by nature about everything. As a parent, you need to encourage them to ask questions, learn new things, read books, have hobbies, and

keep the flame of their curiosity.

Curiosity is an important ingredient of learning at every age. Children at school need it and so do students and people in every job. Its possession awakens interest, motivation and a feeling of being alive.

Living without curiosity makes life boring, while its presence makes a person more alive and energetic. It keeps the mind strong and in good shape.

Intellectual curiosity is vital for keeping your mind sharp and agile and is important in every age. It stimulates the mind and keeps you young.

After understanding about curiosity I started thinking about how to trigger Curiosity? Is it even possible? Can I be curious about anything?

Scanning Brains

Matthias Gruber from the UC Davis explains his curiosity research in this video, Here are the few learnings

• They put a participant into a brain imaging scanner

• They induced curiosity by asking a question the participant was interested in (“Which Beatles song was on the top of the charts for the longest?”)

• They waited 14 seconds while scanning the participant’s brain

• Then revealed the answer (“Hey Jude”)

• The findings: when the participants became curious, the areas of the brain that anticipate rewards lit up. These areas are associated to dopamine and what Gruber calls the “wanting system.”

Correlation between Dopamine and Curiosity

You’ve probably heard of dopamine. Perhaps that it’s a “pleasure chemical”. But it’s a bit more nuanced than that. Dopamine is all about the anticipation of reward, not the reward itself. In this experiment, it’s released as the participant anticipates learning new information, not when the information is actually given.

You’ve experienced the pleasure of anticipation when you’ve:

enjoyed planning a vacation or outing felt the excitement of standing in line for a ride or a movie saw your waiter walking towards you with that delicious meal you maybe shouldn’t have ordered ,pulled out your phone to see if there was anything new on Instagram (even though you looked five minutes seconds ago) researched that new item you want to buy.

This is an essential understanding for learning: building anticipation is powerful! E. Paul Torrance tells us to “heighten anticipation” in step one of the Torrence Incubation Model of Creative Teaching and Learning. Curiosity cannot be rushed, but the payoff is worth it.

Curiosity Improves Learning

So here’s the real power of creating this dopamine-inducing anticipation.

Gruber’s team added random information in the middle of their curiosity study:

As before, the researchers triggered curiosity in some participants. I’ll call these the “curious people.”

This time, during the 14 seconds, they showed a random face to all participants (both curious and uncurious).

Then, 24 hours later, the curious people could remember the random faces better than the uncurious people.

Let’s be clear: these curious people were NOT curious about the faces. They just happened to be in a state of curiosity and it led to improved learning.

Gruber explains that it relates to the hippocampus activating as part of the dopamine experience. The hippocampus is a part of the brain related to storing long-term memory. When we get dopamine flowing, we engage the hippocampus, and we form long-term memories.

Think back to those moments of strong anticipation: waiting for a movie, planning a vacation, researching a purchase, seeing the waiter bring your special meal, and so on. You probably have some strong memories of those moments. Your anticipation was releasing dopamine, which kick-started the hippocampus into gear.

Conclusion

So, to wrap up my first round of exploring curiosity:

When we become curious, we are anticipating learning information.

Our brain releases dopamine, a pleasurable chemical related to the anticipation of a reward (in this case information).

Simply being in this curious state activates the hippocampus, enhancing memory.

We remember things better when we are in this state, even things we weren’t actually curious about.