Feeling-of-Knowing Experiences Breed Curiosity
Abstract
It is well-established that curiosity has benefits for learning. Less is known about potential links between curiosity and memory retrieval. In theoretical work on metacognition it has been argued that retrieval experiences that occur during memory search can exert control over behaviour. States of curiosity, which can be defined as behavioural tendencies to seek out information, may play a critical role in this control function. We conducted two experiments to address this idea, focusing on links between feeling-of knowing (FOK) experiences, memory-search duration, and subsequent information-seeking behaviour. We administered an episodic FOK paradigm that probed memory for previously studied arbitrary face-name pairs and provided a subsequent opportunity to select a subset for restudy. With this set-up, we examined whether unsuccessful retrieval attempts bias restudy choices towards information that received high FOK ratings. Results in Experiment 1 revealed a positive relationship between FOK ratings and the response-times for corresponding judgments. Critically, we observed a similar positive relationship between FOK ratings and restudy choices in both experiments. Moreover, experimental manipulations of cue familiarity, through introduction of entirely novel (Experiment 1) or primed (Experiment 2) faces in the FOK test-phase, had parallel effects on FOKs and information-seeking behaviour. Overall, these findings suggest that metacognitive experiences accompanying unsuccessful retrieval from episodic memory can induce states of curiosity, which exert control over behaviour beyond the immediate retrieval context. As such, curiosity may act as a bond to ensure that memory gaps identified through unsuccessful retrieval adaptively guide future learning.