Curiosity is passionate and pleasurable Sample Clauses

Curiosity is passionate and pleasurable. In addition to the similar “drive” language that often undergirds other traditional passions such as hunger, psychological research has overlap with the description of curiosity as a pleasurable feeling. Multiple studies have shown curiosity to function in tandem with the reward centers of the brain: curiosity triggers reward anticipation, which supplies a pleasurable feeling for the person experiencing curiosity. For example, in a study by Xxxx et al., test subjects answered trivia questions and self-reported their perceived level of curiosity while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).223 The fMRI scans showed a correlation between 221 Loewenstein, “Psychology of curiosity,” 82. 222 Ibid. 223 Xxxx, “The wick in the candle of learning,” 963–973. curiosity and activity in the left caudate and bilateral prefrontal cortex.224 Both of these regions have been extensively associated with reward anticipation in previous studies.225 Although caudate activation seems to be reliably associated with reward anticipation, the activity in the left prefrontal cortex was a result of neural input from the dorsal striatum, which has been shown to respond to memory and motor functioning as well as reward prediction.226 Because the testing conditions contained memory and motor functions, the researchers designed a follow-up study to further test the link between curiosity and reward anticipation. The follow-up study, which involved cost expenditure in exchange for information, reinforced the reward findings from the first study. Furthermore, another similar fMRI trivia study (Xxxxxx et al.) reached findings that were largely supportive of the Xxxx et al. research. The Xxxxxx study even showed activity in the nucleus accumbens,227 one of the “most reliably activated structures for reward anticipation,” 228 which the Xxxx et. al. research had not.229 Another reoccurring feature of the research around reward is the generality of the reward interpretation, which supports philosophical assertions that the desire for knowledge that characterizes curiosity (and the pleasure of learning as a result of it) is akin to the desire for food 224 Ibid., 966. 225 See Xxxx, “Wick in the Candle of Learning,” 971, and Xxxx and Xxxxxx, “Psychology and Neuroscience,” 454 for a list of studies. 226 Xxxx, “Wick in the Candle of Learning,” 971. 227 Xxxxxx, “States of curiosity,” 486–496. 228 Xxxx and Xxxxxx, “Psychology and Neuroscience,” 454. 229 Different testing conditions and...