PubMed İndeksli Yayınlar Koleksiyonu / PubMed Indexed Publications Collection
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11779/1928
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Article The Cost of Curiosity: Information-Reward Tradeoffs in Early Childhood(Elsevier Science Inc, 2026-08-01) Lucca, Kelsey; Sen, Hilal H.Curiosity is a powerful engine of learning that shapes how people explore, acquire knowledge, and adapt to their environments. Though the implications of curiosity are clear, we know little about what drives curiosity. One widely-held view is that satisfying curiosity is intrinsically rewarding. Yet there is limited direct evidence supporting this claim, particularly during early childhood-a period characterized by heightened curiosity. Here, we provide an empirical test of whether satisfying curiosity is intrinsically valuable to children by asking whether they will forego hard-earned rewards to obtain information. To examine the limits of costly curiosity, we ask whether children will give up hard-earned rewards to learn something new, even when the information to be gained is unknown and offers no immediate or long-term benefit. Critically, we test what factors (i.e., age, gender, cultural background, trait curiosity, reward availability) shape children's willingness to engage in costly curiosity. In a sample of 226 children aged 3-6 years in the United States and Turkey, nearly all children (87%) gave up rewards to obtain information. However, costly curiosity was limited, most children gave up only a few rewards (i.e., the smallest amount possible), and the extent of trading varied by gender and culture: boys traded more than girls and children in the United States traded more than in Turkey. These findings provide evidence that children's curiosity is not driven by sheer impulse, but instead, a decision-making process that weighs both costs and benefits, and is shaped by broader individual and cultural factors.Article Citation - WoS: 2Where Should I Search Next? Messages Embedded in Storybooks Influence Children's Strategic Exploration in Turkey and the United States(Amer Psychological Assoc, 2024-08-01) Vaisarova, Julie; Kiefer, Sarah L.; Sen, Hilal; Todd, Peter M.; Lucca, KelseyDespite the vital role of curiosity-driven exploration in learning, our understanding of how to enhance children's curiosity remains limited. Here, we tested whether hearing a strategic curiosity story with curiosity-promoting themes (e.g., strategically approaching uncertainty, adapting flexibly to new information) versus a control story with traditional pedagogical themes (e.g., following rules, learning from others) would influence children's strategic exploration across two cultures. Three- to 6-year-olds from the United States (N = 138) and Turkey (N = 88) were randomly assigned to hear one of these stories over Zoom, before playing a game in which they searched for sea creatures across five fish tanks. All tanks had the same number of hiding spots but varied in the number of creatures they contained. Time was limited and children could not return to prior tanks, pushing them to allocate search effort strategically. Results indicated that across both countries, children in the strategic curiosity condition explored the virtual "aquarium" more broadly; they moved through tanks more rapidly than children in the control condition and were more likely to explore all five tanks before time ran out. Children in the strategic curiosity condition also showed relatively more strategic search, adapting their search based on the likelihood of finding creatures in each tank. While further research is needed to pinpoint which elements of our stories produced differences in search behavior and whether they did so by enhancing or inhibiting children's strategic exploration, storybooks appear to be a promising method for shaping children's exploration across multiple countries.Article Citation - WoS: 3Citation - Scopus: 3Developmental Differences in Children and Adults' Enforcement of Explore Versus Exploit Search Strategies in the United States and Turkey(Wiley, 2024-04-25) Kiefer, Sarah L.; Aksu, Ece; Şen, Hilal H.; Lucca, KelseyAcross development, as children acquire a deeper understanding of their environment, they explore less and take advantage, or "exploit," what they already know. Here, we test whether children also enforce exploration-oriented search behaviors onto others. Specifically, we ask whether children are more likely to encourage a search agent to explore versus exploit their environment, and whether this pattern varies across childhood (between 3 and 6 years). We also ask whether this pattern differs between children and adults, and generalizes across two different sociocultural contexts-Turkey and the United States-that differ on dimensions that might relate to children's decisions about exploration (e.g., curiosity-focused educational practices, attitudes toward uncertainty avoidance). Participants (N = 358) watched an agent search for rewards and were asked at various points whether the agent should "stay" (exploit) in their current location, or "go" (explore) to a new location. At all points in the experiment, children enforced exploration significantly more often than adults. Early in the agent's search, children in the US enforced exploration more often than children in Turkey; later in the search, younger children (from both sociocultural contexts) were more likely to continue enforcing exploration compared to older children. These findings highlight that children are not only highly exploratory themselves, but also enforce exploration onto others-underscoring the central role that exploration plays in driving early cognitive development across diverse sociocultural contexts.Research Highlights The current study examined developmental and cross-cultural differences in children and adults' enforcement of explore-exploit search strategies. Children in the US and Turkey enforced exploration more than adults, who enforced exploitation more often; results were generally consistent across cultures with small differences. Mirroring developmental changes in children's own search behavior; the tendency to enforce exploration decreased between 3- to 6-years of age. Findings underscore the central role of an "exploration mindset" in children's early decision-making-even when exploration has no direct benefits to the child themselves.Article Citation - WoS: 6Citation - Scopus: 9Exploring Individual Differences in Infants' Looking Preferences for Impossible Events: the Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale(Frontiers Media Sa, 2023-02-02) Sen, Hilal H. H.; Lucca, Kelsey; Lazaro, Vanessa; Lee, Nayen; Wang, Jinjing JennyInfants are drawn to events that violate their expectations about the world: they look longer at physically impossible events, such as when a car passes through a wall. Here, we examined whether individual differences in infants' visual preferences for physically impossible events reflect an early form of curiosity, and asked whether caregivers' behaviors, parenting styles, and everyday routines relate to these differences. In Study 1, we presented infants (N = 47, M-age = 16.83 months, range = 10.29-24.59 months) with events that violated physical principles and closely matched possible events. We measured infants' everyday curiosity and related experiences (i.e., caregiver curiosity-promoting activities) through a newly developed curiosity scale, The Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale (EMCS). Infants' looking preferences for physically impossible events were positively associated with their score on the EMCS, but not their temperament, vocabulary, or caregiver trait curiosity. In Study 2A, we set out to better understand the relation between the EMCS and infants' looking preferences for physically impossible events by assessing the underlying structure of the EMCS with a larger sample of children (N = 211, M-age = 47.63 months, range = 10.29-78.97 months). An exploratory factor analysis revealed that children's curiosity was comprised four factors: Social Curiosity, Broad Exploration, Persistence, and Information-Seeking. Relatedly, caregiver curiosity-promoting activities were composed of five factors: Flexible Problem-Solving, Cognitive Stimulation, Diverse Daily Activities, Child-Directed Play, and Awe-Inducing Activities. In Study 2B (N = 42 infants from Study 1), we examined which aspects of infant curiosity and caregiver behavior predicted infants' looking preferences using the factor structures of the EMCS. Findings revealed that infants' looking preferences were uniquely related to infants' Broad Exploration and caregivers' Awe-Inducing Activities (e.g., nature walks with infants, museum outings). These exploratory findings indicate that infants' visual preferences for physically impossible events may reflect an early form of curiosity, which is related to the curiosity-stimulating environments provided by caregivers. Moreover, this work offers a new comprehensive tool, the Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale, that can be used to measure both curiosity and factors related to its development, starting in infancy and extending into childhood.