It's Not Just How Smart You Are: Curiosity Is Key To Learning 83
Scientific American reports that a UC Davis study (paywalled) on how learning interacts with curiosity indicates that curiosity can lead to demonstrably better recall. From the SciAm article:
Neuroscientist Charan Ranganath and his fellow researchers asked 19 participants to review more than 100 questions, rating each in terms of how curious they were about the answer. Next, each subject revisited 112 of the questions—half of which strongly intrigued them whereas the rest they found uninteresting—while the researchers scanned their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During the scanning session participants would view a question then wait 14 seconds and view a photograph of a face totally unrelated to the trivia before seeing the answer. Afterward the researchers tested participants to see how well they could recall and retain both the trivia answers and the faces they had seen. Ranganath and his colleagues discovered that greater interest in a question would predict not only better memory for the answer but also for the unrelated face that had preceded it. A follow-up test one day later found the same results—people could better remember a face if it had been preceded by an intriguing question. Somehow curiosity could prepare the brain for learning and long-term memory more broadly."
Hmmm... (Score:1)
What does this button do?
Pay attention to where you are and what you are... (Score:2)
doing. From the description above: " Ranganath and his colleagues discovered that greater interest in a question would predict not only better memory for the answer but also for the unrelated face that had preceded it." But the following sentence (and the experimental protocol) state that the face followed (not preceded) the question. So someone was not paying attention. Is it any wonder that non-scientists are confused and bored by rubbish such as this? In the words of Yoda.....
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You are quite right. Which is why I should not post on /. at 2:30 AM. :)
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If you rigorously follow the one drop rule, Obama's a white dude. So he's a honky, just like George Bush and Bill Clinton.
Huh? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O... [wikipedia.org]
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There are no spelling errors in the grandparent post. If he has used a word that you have not encountered before, it is not a reflection on either his level of intellect or education, but on yours.
I was curious, so I looked online and couldn't find the info. So, could you give us the definition of "interprettation", and "errot"?
After that you may want to look up "post", and "pedant".
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The title is a part of the post. It is not a part of the body, which is what you are incorrectly referring to as a post. On this site your post includes a header(which consists of a title and posting information), and a body. It makes me sad that the ability of people to understand basic words is overshadowed by their inability to be wrong without being childish.
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Ah, one for the morons that are so proud of their spelling ability (because they have mastered nothing else in the mental spectrum and hence mistake it for something important) makes their appearance. When these cretins go away, we know that we have achieved something in the educational field. Sadly, this will not happen anytime soon.
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I completely agree. These people fail constantly at improving "education" because all they see is rote learning. Rote learning is basically worthless these days, once you have reached a sufficient factual basis that allows fast look-up and understanding of not too complicated things. (Understanding complicated things will always take time and most people will never manage to do it, no matter how much data they memorize.) And understanding things is all that matters today. Understanding cannot be created by
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Actually, maintaining (!) understanding requires you to remember the way you understood things, which is vastly different from any rote learning, as rote learning has the "facts" prepared for you.
.. and this is new ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't this some of those things that kind of is a 'given' ?
Curiosity leads to motivation, stuff you do in an unmotivated or bored state never come out well and (thankfully) will not be remembered.
Re:.. and this is new ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I believe it isn't curiosity that was tested. I believe it was interest. Interest != curiosity. Curiosity would involve something the subject didn't know. Interest is something totally different since it relies on a topic the subject already has some familiarity with.
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I have a bad memory for most th
Re:.. and this is new ? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is yet another issue of lay definitions not lining up with definitions used by researchers. Curisotiy in this case is probably best understod as internally motivated and sustained interest compared to interest from external sources.
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Actually "curiosity" might still be the best term. Since it can be independent of how much knowlage of a subject someone currently has.
It's also important that this is subject specific and follows that person's own definition of the
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Re:.. and this is new ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Energy > Interest > Curiosity > Learning
Passive entertainment > Lethargy > Energy Drain
Suggest reading a short essay "On Thinking for Oneself" by Arthur Schopenhauer.
Re:.. and this is new ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't this some of those things that kind of is a 'given' ?
Of course it is. For some reason, all popular science articles try to spin everything as 'A Great, New Discovery'. Scientific research is almost always about checking and measuring the details in the big picture we already know - that is why they keep measuring the gravitational constant, the speed of light etc. And the other side of the coin is the scientific method: you state a theory, then test its predictions. In this case the farily obvious seeming prediction, that curiosity makes you better at learning. In fact, this is not quite as trivial as it may sound: curiosity makes you want to learn, but does your objective ability to learn increase measurably?
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Well it was about remembering a photo so I'd say it's more about recall than learning, which definitely is under conscious control. Imagine the following three scenarios:
1) You show the subjects what you tell them is an instruction video about the test. Then a surprise pop quiz on details of the video (no motivation)
2) You show the subjects the same video, after telling them there'll be a pop quiz afterwards (external motivation) but no consequences or rewards.
3) You show the subjects the same video, after
Re:.. and this is new ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sadly what I take away from this is mainly the effectiveness of having a 15 second ad before a YouTube video, as long as you're interested in what's coming chances are good you'll remember the unrelated ad in front of it too.
Even more sadly, that might have been the real purpose.
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Well it was about remembering a photo so I'd say it's more about recall than learning
Indeed; I was always terrible at memorization, but when I learned a thing, I KNEW that thing. Memorizing Ohm's Law doesn't mean you know what it means. Understanding is far more than memorization.
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Very obviously curiosity and motivation are parts of learning, but I think it was interesting the way they set up the experiment to try to establish curiosity as an independent variable and that they were able to make quantitative measurements.
I'm not convinced that *what* they were measuring was really curiosity in any meaningful sense, as opposed to what some other submitters have suggested - attention, focus, anticipation, etc. - but I give them credit for trying.
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Unfortunately, not. Educational theory is a highly divided and conservative field. There are still plenty of educators who doggedly believe that students learn by behaviorist incentive motivation (carrots and sticks) and that students are blank slates. The idea that education should consider and perhaps even change in response to the internal motivations of students is an idea which has been around for decades, but has continued to be slow to catch on. Perhaps research like this, as limited in its scope as
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My reaction was "well DUH!" as well. This is simply scientific confirmation of the obvious. Now, had the study stated that curiosity had no effect on learning, that would have been a startling finding.
But that's how science works; something that is blindingly obvious is often disproven. In this case it wasn't.
the key to failing a job interview (Score:2, Insightful)
Curiosity and enthusiasm for your work and an ability to learn? No, you're not a quality hire. We have a culture of mindless ignorant drudgery here. We don't need any free-thinking terrorists on our team.
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Unfortunately, while you doubtlessly tried to be funny, you comment is spot-on for quite a bit of the corporate world. People that actually understand things have this tendency to "rock the boat", e.g. by pointing it out when management has (again) made some utterly stupid decisions.
bad definitions (Score:1)
I would say that curiosity is one of the components ot "being smart" and as such, yes, it is just about how smart you are.
Re:But, Curiosity is one of the Big Five factors (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O... [wikipedia.org]
http://pss.sagepub.com/content... [sagepub.com]
We used a new theory of the biological basis of the Big Five personality traits to generate hypotheses about the association of each trait with the volume of different brain regions. Controlling for age, sex, and whole-brain volume, results from structural magnetic resonance imaging of 116 healthy adults supported our hypotheses for four of the five traits: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Extraversion covaried with volume of medial orbitofrontal cortex, a brain region involved in processing reward information. Neuroticism covaried with volume of brain regions associated with threat, punishment, and negative affect. Agreeableness covaried with volume in regions that process information about the intentions and mental states of other individuals. Conscientiousness covaried with volume in lateral prefrontal cortex, a region involved in planning and the voluntary control of behavior. These findings support our biologically based, explanatory model of the Big Five and demonstrate the potential of personality neuroscience (i.e., the systematic study of individual differences in personality using neuroscience methods) as a discipline.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm... [nih.gov]
However, we did find that Openness/Intellect was associated—at p less than
etc.
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Aehm, "curiosity" is active, while "openness" is passive? I.e. completely different perspectives? Also, "curiosity" implies a quest for understanding, while "openness" does not imply any plausibility checking of the "information" received.
Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Most schools makes sure to kill curiosity in its nest.
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My dog never went to school, maybe that's why he's so curious about everything passing in front of our house.
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Curious people make bad little corporate solders and bad obedient citizens. Hence school makes sure to bring them in line as early as possible. The few really smart people society needs to survive still make it through. But these are a lot less than you would think. For example, the average professor is not very smart and decidedly not a scientist.
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Can't argue with that.
I was never curious about a test (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course the didn't calibrate for knowledge. (Score:2)
Of course the didn't calibrate for knowledge.
You're not going to be curious about an answer to a question if you already know the answer.
You're not going to be interested in something if you don't know what it is.
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I hope that the interesting versus boring questions were customized for each participant, otherwise the results would be completely useless. Curiosity is a property of the person, not the question.
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I hope that the interesting versus boring questions were customized for each participant, otherwise the results would be completely useless. Curiosity is a property of the person, not the question.
That'd get them the FMRI results they wanted, but it's unlikely to give them statistically valid, publishable, double-blinded results...
Curiosity (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure that curiosity or intrigue is some property that you can just "put" into a question, as the summary suggests.
Curiosity is so-obviously a huge factor in interest, but it's something that is - at least in part - inherent in a personality, not a question. You can ask the most wonderfully "intriguing" question of someone but if they have no interest, no desire to know, then it's not going to spark their interest. At best, they'll think there's more to the question, then be disappointed at the "trick".
As someone who works in schools (including private schools), curiosity is actually quite a rare trait. Most students just aren't interested in what their learning because it is - to the most part - not something they want to learn. They get forced to.
And the bright ones will FIND something intriguing about the most dull of subjects. I was always more fascinated by mathematics, and trying computer science to mathematics, and science to mathematics, and even graphic design to mathematics (the golden ratio, etc.) made it more interesting to me. This is the geek's main skill and the source of their brain power - the interest they can find in the most mundane of subjects.
The students that stand out have an unquenchable curiosity about the most mundane of things. They suck the knowledge from their teachers until they run dry and then move on to the next source.
I work in IT in schools - I'm not a teacher - but I had a student just last term who realised that I actually knew some things that his teachers didn't know (C programming, basic electronics, etc.). His curiosity ran riot and he did everything he could to learn more and schedule time that I could show him things (I'm not a teacher, but the school are really good about focusing on the student, so they allowed it). Hell, I took him into the science lab and showed him how to solder circuits because NOBODY had ever shown him how to do it.
This is a young adult that's since gone to an exclusive private school with the best teachers and resources in the world but because soldering was "new" to him, he took it on and within a couple of hours was proficient in it. It piqued his interest, so he didn't let it rest. Did I make it interesting? Did I come up with some link to other subjects he enjoyed? Did I make up stories about the history of soldering to make it more interesting? No.
Curiosity is a trait to instil in your child, at all costs. Not through trick questions, not through forcing them but to just get them to question and - when they do - answer. I can't tell you the number of teachers and parents I see say "I don't know" to a child's question and leave it at that. Or "it's too hard for you". Or even "Shut up, we need to do this next bit".
Instil curiosity by making curiosity the norm. "Well, how does it do that, do you think? I've no idea myself, son. Let's go find out, shall we? Shall we ask that guy that's running the machine?".
Curiosity is the driver here. It's not something you can make happen, it's certainly not something that you can get into a kid by rewording a question - but it's something you can encourage, by asking questions that all the other adults never bother to ask, and never bother to answer either.
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And the bright ones will FIND something intriguing about the most dull of subjects.
That you even noticed that is great! Not so many people, even that deal with the school atmosphere for years are able to notice that (maybe they act in that direction, but they're not conscious of what they're doing). And so in saying that, you show that you have a real interest in children's learning. Getting to know the kids' interests, and introducing them into the current curriculum, even if just for that one or two students, can drastically improve their "ability to learn".
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"And the bright ones will FIND something intriguing about the most dull of subjects."
I think that's a good point. The difference between poor teaching and good teaching may be whether it encourages finding interest this way, even in "dull" stuff like rote-learned subjects. I had almost all good teachers all the way through school.
Seriously?!? (Score:1)
Neuroscientist Charan Ranganath and his fellow researchers asked 19 participants ...
Do we need to look any further? 19 participants !?!
Why do we continually get in a froth over things that wouldn't count as preliminary results in the real world? 19 participants ?!?
Come back when you've conducted *real* research on a *statistically significant* number of test subjects. 19 participants !?!
Oh, and in case you missed it ... 19 PARTICIPANTS!?!?!
Ignobel Material .... (Score:3)
... Really? This wasn't suspected, hadn't been demonstrated a million times over? Wow, curiousity an important factor in learning?! Who knew? OH, EVERYONE!
Sadly, there are some real researchers who still aren't funded.
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... Really? This wasn't suspected, hadn't been demonstrated a million times over? Wow, curiousity an important factor in learning?! Who knew? OH, EVERYONE!
Sadly, there are some real researchers who still aren't funded.
I'm seeing a lot of posts like yours, and you're all missing the point. Of course interest and curiosity in a subject helps learning within that field. The interesting part about this study is that when you're brain is in that state, you're better at learning about unrelated subjects that you have no interest in. The point isn't that people remembered the trivia questions they were interested in better, it's that they remembered the unrelated faces better.
I experience this myself in a weird way. I have
Already known (Score:5, Interesting)
"Curiosity is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
My advice: Don't waste a lot of time studying things that are already known to be true. (Pretty much everything he said, I take at face value.)
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I do as well, I think he tended to keep his mouth shut until there was something to be said.
My fav (because... yes, I am cynical)
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
Albert Einstein
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You know what, it's worth putting the link to his quotes up as well.
https://www.goodreads.com/auth... [goodreads.com]
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The classic method is not a failure. It produces exactly what is wanted. There will only ever be few engineers and scientists that deserve the name. It is not the educational system that produces them, they are born like that and just need to pick up (which they do by themselves) the things that are already known in their chosen field of study. This is why "the hour of code" and similar things are such a bad idea: Being a good scientist or engineer is not something you learn, it is something you are.
The US
Well duh... (Score:1)
Curiosity is synonymous with interest, if you aren't interested in a subject you don't apply the same effort.