Being curious about something actually changes the way the brain behaves. It also prepares you to learn something new and better absorb incidental information, according to a new study by a team of researchers led by Dr. Charan Ranganath, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Davis.
Ranganath and his colleagues came to their conclusion after giving 19 study participants a trivia test. First, participants were asked to review around 150 questions, rating how much each question interested them or how curious they were to find out the answer.
The 19 participants then read 112 of the questions and answers, half of which they'd adjudged to be interesting and the other half boring, according to a press release issued by the University of California, Davis.
Participants had their brain activity scanned while being asked to memorize the answers to each question.
Along with being asked to memorize answers, participants were shown and asked to memorize pictures of human faces, which weren't related to trivia questions, according to the study.
Researchers determined that participants were able to remember both trivia answers and the unrelated face if they were curious about the question. A follow-up test the next day confirmed the memory-enhancing effects of curiosity.
MRI scans helped Ranganath and his colleagues understand how this was happening inside the brain.
"So curiosity recruits the reward system, and interactions between the reward system and the hippocampus seem to put the brain in a state in which you are more likely to learn and retain information, even if that information is not of particular interest or importance," Ranganath said, according to the press release.
The findings were detailed this week in the journal Neuron.
"Our findings potentially have far-reaching implications for the public because they reveal insights into how a form of intrinsic motivation -- curiosity -- affects memory," said lead study author Dr. Matthias Gruber, also a neuroscientist at UC Davis, according to the release . "These findings suggest ways to enhance learning in the classroom and other settings."
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