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Costly curiosity : people pay a price to resolve an uncertain gamble early
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Rodriguez Cabrero, J. A. Max , Zhu, Jian-Qiao and Ludvig, Elliot Andrew (2019) Costly curiosity : people pay a price to resolve an uncertain gamble early. Behavioural Processes, 160 . pp. 20-25. doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2018.12.015
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2018.12.015
Abstract
Humans are inherently curious creatures, continuously seeking out information about future outcomes. Such advance information is often valuable, potentially allowing people to select better courses of action. In non-human animals, this drive for information can be so strong that they forego food or water to find out a few seconds earlier whether an uncertain option will provide a reward. Here, we assess whether people will exhibit a similar sub-optimal preference for advance information. Participants played a card-flipping task where they were probabilistically rewarded based on the pattern of 3 cards that were revealed after a 5-s delay. During this delay, participants could instead pay a cost to find out the next card’s identity immediately. This choice to find out early did not influence the eventual outcome. Participants preferred to find out early about 80% of the time when the information was free; they were even willing to incur an expense to get advance information about the eventual outcome. The expected magnitude of the outcome, however, had little impact on the likelihood of finding out early. These results suggest that humans, like animals, value noninstrumental information and will pay a price for such information, independent of its utility.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology | ||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science > Psychology | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Decision making, Curiosity, Gambling | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Behavioural Processes | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Elsevier BV | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0376-6357 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | March 2019 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 160 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 20-25 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.beproc.2018.12.015 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
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