Curiosity is considered to be the essence of science and an integral component of cognition. What prompts curiosity in a learner? Previous theoretical accounts of curiosity remain divided-novelty-based theories propose that new and highly uncertain stimuli pique curiosity, whereas complexity-based theories propose that stimuli with an intermediate degree of uncertainty stimulate curiosity. In this article, we present a rational analysis of curiosity by considering the computational problem underlying curiosity, which allows us to model these distinct accounts of curiosity in a common framework. Our approach posits that a rational agent should explore stimuli that maximally increase the usefulness of its knowledge and that curiosity is the mechanism by which humans approximate this rational behavior. Critically, our analysis show that the causal structure of the environment can determine whether curiosity is driven by either highly uncertain or moderately uncertain stimuli. This suggests that previous theories need not be in contention but are special cases of a more general account of curiosity. Experimental results confirm our predictions and demonstrate that our theory explains a wide range of findings about human curiosity, including its subjectivity and malleability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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通过对好奇心的合理分析来调和新颖性和复杂性。

好奇心被认为是科学的本质，也是认知的组成部分。是什么促使学习者产生好奇心？以前关于好奇心的理论解释仍然是分歧的，基于新颖性的理论提出了新的且高度不确定的刺激性好奇心，而基于复杂性的理论提出了具有中等程度的不确定性的刺激性引起了好奇心。在本文中，我们通过考虑好奇心背后的计算问题，提出了对好奇心的合理分析，这使我们能够在一个通用框架中对这些不同的好奇心进行建模。我们的方法认为，理性主体应该探索最大程度地增加其知识实用性的刺激，而好奇心则是人类近似这种理性行为的机制。至关重要的是 我们的分析表明，环境的因果结构可以确定好奇心是由高度不确定的刺激还是中等不确定的刺激驱动的。这表明先前的理论不必引起争论，而只是对好奇心更一般性解释的特例。实验结果证实了我们的预测，并证明我们的理论解释了关于人类好奇心的广泛发现，包括其主观性和可塑性。（PsycINFO数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。实验结果证实了我们的预测，并证明我们的理论解释了关于人类好奇心的广泛发现，包括其主观性和可塑性。（PsycINFO数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。实验结果证实了我们的预测，并证明我们的理论解释了关于人类好奇心的广泛发现，包括其主观性和可塑性。（PsycINFO数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。