Curiosity shapes spatial exploration and cognitive map formation in humans

Cen, Danlu ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5243-2388, Teichert, Eva, Hodgetts, Carl J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0339-2447 and Gruber, Matthias J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2754-0520 2024. Curiosity shapes spatial exploration and cognitive map formation in humans. Communications Psychology 2 , 129. 10.1038/s44271-024-00174-6

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Abstract

Cognitive maps are thought to arise, at least in part, from our intrinsic curiosity to explore unknown places. However, it remains untested how curiosity shapes aspects of spatial exploration in humans. Combining a virtual reality task with indices of exploration complexity, we found that pre-exploration curiosity states predicted how much individuals spatially explored environments, whereas markers of visual exploration determined post-exploration feelings of interest. Moreover, individual differences in curiosity traits, particularly Stress Tolerance, modulated the relationship between curiosity and spatial exploration, suggesting the capacity to cope with uncertainty enhances the curiosity-exploration link. Furthermore, both curiosity and spatial exploration predicted how precisely participants could recall spatial-relational details of the environment, as measured by a sketch map task. These results provide new evidence for a link between curiosity and exploratory behaviour, and how curiosity might shape cognitive map formation.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC)
Publisher:	Nature Research
Funders:	Wellcome Trust and Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellowship, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	19 December 2024
Date of Acceptance:	5 December 2024
Last Modified:	07 Jan 2025 11:09
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/174868

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