Explanation-seeking curiosity in childhood

Liquin, Emily; Lombrozo, Tania

doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.05.012

Cited by 54 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 86 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Conversations between parents and children are not driven only by parents, but rather many of these conversations are started by children’s questions [ 21 ]. Research in developmental psychology suggest that children’s questions are key in understanding their cognition, as children use questions to fill knowledge gaps [ 16 , 17 , 22 , 23 ]. Therefore, children’s questions might give us insight into which aspects of the pandemic children want to know more about.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“When will it be over?” U.S. children’s questions and parents’ responses about the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Parent-child conversations are important for children’s cognitive development, children’s ability to cope with stressful events, and can shape children’s beliefs about the causes of illness. In the context of a global pandemic, families have faced a multitude of challenges, including changes to their routines, that they need to convey to their children. Thus, parent-child conversations about the coronavirus pandemic might convey information about the causes of illness, but also about how and why it is necessary for children to modify their behaviors to comply with new social norms and medical guidance. The main goal of this study was to examine the questions children ask about the COVID-19 pandemic and how parents answer them. This survey included responses from a national sample of 349 predominantly white parents of children between the ages of 3 and 12 recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in United States. Parents reported that although children asked about COVID-19 and its causes (17.3%), children asked primarily about lifestyle changes that occurred as a result of the pandemic (24.0%) and safety (18.4%). Parents reported answering these questions by emphasizing that the purpose of different preventative measures was to protect the child (11.8%) or the family (42.7%) and providing reassurance (13.3%). Many parents discussed how it was their social responsibility to slow the spread of the virus (38.4%). Parents of younger children tended to shield them from information about COVID-19 (p = .038), while parents with more knowledge were more likely to provide explanations (p < .001). Our analysis shows that families not only discuss information about the virus but also information about changes to their lifestyle, preventative measures, and social norms.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“When will it be over?” U.S. children’s questions and parents’ responses about the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Curiosity, the desire to acquire new information, is often described as an epistemic emotion and is accompanied by positive affect [ 1 ]. It has been shown to be a powerful driver of learning, especially in children [ 2 ]. In educational settings, curiosity for scientific knowledge is a major motivation for long-term involvement in STEM subjects and predicts academic performance [ 3 , 4 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Curiosity in childhood and adolescence — what can we learn from the brain

Gruber

Fandakova

2021

Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Highlights Curiosity enhances memory via the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and ventral striatum. Development of curiosity and its effect on memory in childhood/adolescence not well understood. Maturation of curiosity-promoting brain functions might contribute to increasing benefits of curiosity for learning. Harnessing curiosity in education might need differential approaches across child development.

show abstract

“…Indeed, these may be particularly important in development. Novelty or surprise of events is known to provoke explanation-seeking in children, and these behaviours are thought to be powerful drivers of learning ( Liquin & Lombrozo, 2020 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Curiosity-driven learning in adults with and without dyslexia

Garvin

Krishnan

2021

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

People are willing to spend time and money to receive information and content they are curious about, such as answers to trivia questions, suggesting they find information per se rewarding. Further, in neurotypical adults, states of high curiosity, and high satisfaction with the information received, are known to enhance learning and memory of information encountered in that state. Here, we ask whether the relationship between curiosity, satisfaction, and learning is altered in a group with specific learning difficulty with reading (dyslexia). Using the willingness-to-wait paradigm, we observed that adults with and without dyslexia are willing to spend time waiting for verbal and visual information. This indicates that the same “wanting” mechanisms are seen in individuals with dyslexia for information. We then examined whether information that was desirable was also associated with enhanced memory. Our findings indicate that information does function like a reward, with the gap between expected and received information driving memory. However, this memory effect was attenuated in individuals with dyslexia. These findings point to the need to understand how reward drives learning, and why this might differ in dyslexia.

show abstract

Explanation-seeking curiosity in childhood

Cited by 54 publications

References 86 publications

“When will it be over?” U.S. children’s questions and parents’ responses about the COVID-19 pandemic

“When will it be over?” U.S. children’s questions and parents’ responses about the COVID-19 pandemic

Curiosity in childhood and adolescence — what can we learn from the brain

Curiosity-driven learning in adults with and without dyslexia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About