Curiosity Affects the Brain, Enhances Learning

Several years ago, Daisy Yuhas wrote an interesting article about new neuroscience research regarding curiosity and leanring. I came across the article today, and I thought it was worth sharing the key lessons. Yuhas explains the findings from a study about how intellectual curiosity affects the brain and shapes learning.

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.

To me personally, the implications are quite profound.  As a professor, I should strive to tap into and stimulate a person's intellectual curiosity about a particular subject.  If I can do that successfully, they may learn more effectively.   Similarly, we can leverage these findings as we think about how we train workers in our organizations.  If workers approach a new task with curiosity, then perhaps they will learn the required skills more effectively.