A cross-disciplinary outline of curiosity

Curiosity – a necessity across intelligences?

Project 1

Members: Sofia Forss, Fay Clark, David Harrison, Cristina Galusca, Alejandra Ciria, Michelle 'Misha' Oraa Ali

Project Description: This project seeks to provide an overview on how curiosity is defined across different scientific disciplines; educational- and developmental psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy, evolutionary biology, animal cognition, artificial intelligence and developmental robotics. We further aim to review what mechanisms and measures of curiosity are featured across the different fields and finally we will review potential unifying or divergent perspectives.

Reading suggestions:

Harber et. al. 2018. Learning to play with intrinsically-motivated self-aware agents. arXiv, DOI: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07442

Marvin, C. B., Tedeschi, E., & Shohamy, D. (2020). Curiosity as the impulse to know: Common behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying curiosity and impulsivity. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 35, 92–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.08.003

Pierre-Yves, O. 2018. Computational Theories of Curiosity-Driven Learning. arXiv, DOI: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.10546

Ainley, M. (2019). Curiosity and Interest: Emergence and Divergence. Educational Psychology Review, 31(4), 789–806. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09495-z

Arndt, K., Struckmeier, O., & Kyrki, V. (2021). Domain Curiosity: Learning Efficient Data Collection Strategies for Domain Adaptation. ArXiv:2103.07223 [Cs]. http://arxiv.org/abs/2103.07223

Bairaktarova, D., Evangelou, D., Bagiati, A., & Brophy, S. (2011). Early Engineering in Young Children’s Exploratory Play with Tangible Materials. Children, Youth and Environments, 21(2), 212–235. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.21.2.0212

Berlyne, D. E. (1954). An experimental study of human curiosity. British Journal of Psychology, 45(4), 256–265. http://www.proquest.com/docview/1293610727/citation/BEF3A12FE8694F2BPQ/1

Bonawitz, E., Shafto, P., Gweon, H., Chang, I., Katz, S., & Schulz, L. (2009). The Double-edged Sword of Pedagogy: Modeling the Effect of Pedagogical Contexts on Preschoolers’ Exploratory Play. MIT Web Domain. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/60932

Bondu, A., & Lemaire, V. (n.d.). Active Learning using Adaptive Curiosity. 8.

Bunce, L. (2016). Appreciation of Authenticity Promotes Curiosity: Implications for Object-based Learning in Museums. Journal of Museum Education, 41(3), 230–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/10598650.2016.1193312

Butler, L. P., & Markman, E. M. (n.d.). Pedagogical Cues Influence Children’s Inductive Inference and Exploratory Play. 7.

Buyalskaya, A., & Camerer, C. F. (2020). The neuroeconomics of epistemic curiosity. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 35, 141–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.09.006

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Cahill-Solis, T. L., & Witryol, S. L. (1994). Children’s exploratory play preferences for four levels of novelty in toy constructions. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 120(4), 393–408.

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Cook, C., Goodman, N. D., & Schulz, L. E. (2011). Where science starts: Spontaneous experiments in preschoolers’ exploratory play. Cognition, 120(3), 341–349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.03.003

Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Bennett, S. (1971). An Exploratory Model of Play. American Anthropologist, 73(1), 45–58. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1971.73.1.02a00040

CuriosityPleasurePlay_Perry.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved July 7, 2021, from http://chinadevpeds.com/resources/CuriosityPleasurePlay_Perry.pdf

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Damerius, L. A., Graber, S. M., Willems, E. P., & van Schaik, C. P. (2017). Curiosity boosts orang-utan problem-solving ability. Animal Behaviour, 134, 57-70.

DISI Curiousity Project. (n.d.). Google Docs. Retrieved July 7, 2021, from https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1CfOr-2txF-1fHMxfPJUccNADDqCsw75GK7NuONmbRvM/edit?usp=embed_facebook

Doan, T., Castro, A., Bonawitz, E., & Denison, S. (2020). “Wow, I did it!”: Unexpected success increases preschoolers’ exploratory play on a later task. Cognitive Development, 55, 100925. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100925

Dodd, A. T., & Wilson, J. T. (1998). The Playfulness of Toddlers in Adult-Directed, Adult-Assisted, and Exploratory Play Contexts. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED423027

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Engel, S. (2011). Children’s Need to Know: Curiosity in Schools. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 625–645. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.4.h054131316473115

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Gordon, G. (2020). Infant-inspired intrinsically motivated curious robots. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 35, 28–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.05.010

Gurholt, K. P., & Sanderud, J. R. (2016). Curious play: Children’s exploration of nature. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 16(4), 318–329. https://doi.org/10.1080/14729679.2016.1162183

Haber, N., Mrowca, D., Fei-Fei, L., & Yamins, D. L. K. (2018). Learning to Play with Intrinsically-Motivated Self-Aware Agents. ArXiv:1802.07442 [Cs, Stat]. http://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07442

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Henderson, B., & Moore, S. G. (1980). Children’s Responses to Objects Differing in Novelty in Relation to Level of Curiosity and Adult Behavior. Child Development, 51(2), 457–465. https://doi.org/10.2307/1129279

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Jirout, J., & Klahr, D. (2011). Children’s Question Asking and Curiosity: A Training Study. In Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED528504

Jirout, J., & Klahr, D. (2012). Children’s scientific curiosity: In search of an operational definition of an elusive concept. Developmental Review, 32(2), 125–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2012.04.002

Jirout, J., Vitiello, V., & Zumbrunn, S. (2018). CURIOSITY IN SCHOOLS (pp. 243–266).

Kaye, D. (2020). The Curious Incident of a Curious Incident: A Pandemic Meta-Play. Covid-19 UNH Community Archive Submissions. https://scholars.unh.edu/covid_19_submissions/1

Kidd, C., & Hayden, B. Y. (2015). The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity. Neuron, 88(3), 449–460. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010

Lamb, M. E., & Keller, H. (2019). Infant Development: Perspectives From German-speaking Countries. Routledge.

Legare, C. H. (2012). Exploring Explanation: Explaining Inconsistent Evidence Informs Exploratory, Hypothesis-Testing Behavior in Young Children. Child Development, 83(1), 173–185. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01691.x

Liu, R., & Xu, F. (n.d.). Feeling of Competence Affects Children’s Curiosity and Creativity. 7.

Marvin, C. B., Tedeschi, E., & Shohamy, D. (2020). Curiosity as the impulse to know: Common behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying curiosity and impulsivity. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 35, 92–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.08.003

• Your powerpoint/keynote presentation (once prepared)