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Shared striatal activity in decisions to satisfy curiosity and hunger at the risk of electric shocks

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Listed:
  • Johnny King L. Lau

    (University of Reading)

  • Hiroki Ozono

    (Kagoshima University)

  • Kei Kuratomi

    (Aichi Shukutoku University)

  • Asuka Komiya

    (Hiroshima University)

  • Kou Murayama

    (University of Reading
    Kochi University of Technology)

Abstract

Curiosity is often portrayed as a desirable feature of human faculty. However, curiosity may come at a cost that sometimes puts people in harmful situations. Here, using a set of behavioural and neuroimaging experiments with stimuli that strongly trigger curiosity (for example, magic tricks), we examine the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying the motivational effect of curiosity. We consistently demonstrate that across different samples, people are indeed willing to gamble, subjecting themselves to electric shocks to satisfy their curiosity for trivial knowledge that carries no apparent instrumental value. Also, this influence of curiosity shares common neural mechanisms with that of hunger for food. In particular, we show that acceptance (compared to rejection) of curiosity-driven or incentive-driven gambles is accompanied by enhanced activity in the ventral striatum when curiosity or hunger was elicited, which extends into the dorsal striatum when participants made a decision.

Suggested Citation

  • Johnny King L. Lau & Hiroki Ozono & Kei Kuratomi & Asuka Komiya & Kou Murayama, 2020. "Shared striatal activity in decisions to satisfy curiosity and hunger at the risk of electric shocks," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(5), pages 531-543, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:4:y:2020:i:5:d:10.1038_s41562-020-0848-3
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-020-0848-3
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    Cited by:

    1. Lane, Tom, 2022. "Intrinsic preferences for unhappy news," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 119-130.
    2. Yaniv Abir & Caroline B. Marvin & Camilla Geen & Maya Leshkowitz & Ran R. Hassin & Daphna Shohamy, 2022. "An energizing role for motivation in information-seeking during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Alexandr Ten & Pramod Kaushik & Pierre-Yves Oudeyer & Jacqueline Gottlieb, 2021. "Humans monitor learning progress in curiosity-driven exploration," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.

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