Curiosity and the pleasures of learning: Wanting and liking new information

Abstract

This paper proposes a new theoretical model of curiosity that incorporates the neuroscience of “wanting” and “liking”, which are two systems hypothesised to underlie motivation and affective experience for a broad class of appetites. In developing the new model, the paper discusses empirical and theoretical limitations inherent to drive and optimal arousal theories of curiosity, and evaluates these models in relation to Litman and Jimerson's (2004) recently developed interest-deprivation (I/D) theory of curiosity. A detailed discussion of the I/D model and its relationship to the neuroscience of wanting and liking is provided, and an integrative I/D/wanting-liking model is proposed, with the aim of clarifying the complex nature of curiosity as an emotional-motivational state, and to shed light on the different ways in which acquiring knowledge can be pleasurable.