Curiosity has long been a topic of scientific interest, but it encompasses so many potential traits and behaviors that it has been difficult to precisely target the cognitive and neural mechanisms that drive it. Recent work has reinvigorated the scientific approach to this topic by shifting from trait-level questions to a neurobiological perspective that emphasizes behavior, exploration and information-seeking. By viewing information as a reward, this research has leveraged the extensive body of work on reward processing to understand curiosity as a type of intrinsically motivated, goal-directed behavior. However, this information-as-reward framework raises a host of new questions about how curiosity develops and how it drives learning. In this dissertation, I aimed to test this framework and to address a series of questions about how curiosity drives exploration, learning, and memory. Chapter 1 addresses the question of how curiosity changes across the adult lifespan and tests whether these changes mirror well-established declines in dopamine transmission and reward sensitivity. The first study in this chapter found that, rather than showing declines in curiosity, older adults in fact displayed behaviors that reflected increases in curiosity. They were more willing to wait for information than younger adults and were equally able to remember the information they learned. The second study sought to replicate these results and to examine their neural substrates using fMRI. This study found that older and younger adults displayed equal levels of curiosity and memory. Results from fMRI also showed similar effects for both age groups: increased activation in brain regions associated with reward processing, as well as semantic memory, was related to curiosity and to memory. Chapter 2 explored the other end of development and examined changes in curiosity from late childhood into early adulthood. In this study, we focused on two different conceptualizations of curiosity -- willingness to wait (as in Chapter 1) and also a new measure of exploratory visual behavior. Results showed increases in both waiting and visual exploration between childhood and adulthood. These changes in curiosity were also accompanied by improvements in memory. These findings, like those in Chapter 1, provide evidence against the hypothesis that curiosity declines with age, and also expands our understanding of how different measures of curiosity-driven behavior may relate to one another. Chapter 3 addresses a fundamental question about how to evaluate curiosity and how different forms of curiosity cluster together. Using a large online sample, we obtained two separate groups of measures: measures of curiosity-driven behaviors (willingness to wait, ratings of interest about specific questions, curiosity-related memory), and measures of curiosity as a trait. Additionally, we obtained measures of traits and behaviors though to be related to curiosity, including impulsivity, need for cognition and willingness to wait for monetary rewards. Results revealed that different aspects of curiosity-related behavior cluster together, and that while there was a relationship between self-report and behavioral measures, there were also more nuanced differences in the relationships between different behaviors. Overall, the results from these three lines of research advance our understanding of curiosity by examining the extent to which curiosity is similar to reward processing, testing how it changes across the lifespan, and comparing different types of curiosity. The findings also open up new questions about the influence of other cognitive processes on curiosity and suggest ways in which we can better study how curiosity drives exploration and learning.

Thesis--Boston University. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Boston University. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Current evaluations in science education research of discovery based science programs give no clear indication of the merit of these new science programs. Getzels and Jackson's studies in creativity suggest that permissive and authoritarian family environments may influence development of creativity and IQ respectively in children. It was reasoned that findings relating family and school environments to creativity could have relevance in science education where discovery based science programs are having a profound effect on altering science classroom environment. It was hypothesized that permissive science classroom environments would produce significantly higher posttest creativity means than the control. Since a current science education goal is to enhance student question asking skill (e.g. Inquiry Training) and since findings indicate question asking styles are related to aptitudes, it is hypothesized that high creative and high permissive groups will have significantly higher factual and yes-no question score means whereas high intelligence and low permissive groups will have significantly higher explanation question score means. Creativity tests used in this study include Guilford's Uses Test and the Question Test from Torrance's Ask-and-Guess Test. The Question Test also yields factual, yes-no, and explanation question scores. To assess classroom environment, the Classroom Environment Scale was developed. Item choices were classified by seven judges into the three environmental categories. The sample consisted of four grade seven classes, three experimental and one control. Experimental groups were taught the ESS unit, Batteries and Bulbs. The experimental groups included a semipermissive group which was taught the unit according to suggestions in the teacher's guide, and the permissive and authoritarian groups which, respectively, had less and more teacher control of classroom environment than the semi-permissive group. Experimental groups were shown to have significantly different classroom environment means in the direction expected. Data for testing hypotheses of this project came from a field experiment and a field study. For the field experiment a before and after design was used, analysis of covariance being employed on the group post creativity means with significant covariates derived from step-down regression analysis of pretest data. All significance levels are at the 5% level. Results of the field experiment indicate that for the more valid creativity test, the Uses Test, the group post creativity means of the permissive and authoritarian groups were significantly larger than the control group post mean. With the Question Test, which lacked discriminant validity in regard to intelligence, only the authoritarian group post creativity mean was significantly larger than the control post mean. For the field study high and low groups were formed using medians of creativity, intelligence and classroom environment as cutoffs, with analysis of variance and the F-test used to detect significant differences in means of question scores or question gains of these high and low groups. When question gain data showed non-normality the Chi-square test was used with significance at 1%. Field study results show that the high creative group had significantly higher mean yes-no and factual question scores than the low creative group, whereas the high intelligence group had a significantly higher mean explanation question score than the low intelligence group. Chi-square analysis revealed significant divergence in factual and explanation question gains for low and high permissive groups. For aptitude-environment interaction low aptitude-low permissive interactions contribute most to divergence of factual question gains and high aptitude-low permissive interactions contribute most to divergence of explanation question gains. Strongest divergences in group question gains came from intelligence environment interaction. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

This study has five chapters, organized in the following manner: (1) Chapter I contains the introduction, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, questions, significance of the study, and definition of terms; (2) Chapter II is a review of the literature; (3) Chapter III is a description of subjects and tests and procedures for treating the data; (4) Chapter IV contains the statistical technique of the analysis and the findings related to the questions, and (5) Chapter V consists of the summary, findings, conclusions, and recommendations. The problem of the study was to explore the relationship between curiosity and print awareness among four-year-old children. Subjects participating in the study were 71 four-year-old children from six licensed child care and preschool settings located in different geographical sections of a north central Texas city. The study included thirty-four girls and thirty-seven boys. Instruments used to collect the data were Kreitler, Zigler, and Kreitler's battery of curiosity tasks and Goodman's Signs of the Environment and Book Handling Knowledge tasks. Canonical I correlation analyses do not yield a significant relationship between variables of curiosity and print awareness. An alternate Pearson Product Moment correlation yielded some specific pairwise correlations between certain curiosity variables and print awareness. Results, although not statistically significant, were used as trend indicators to identify areas worthy of further investigation. On the basis of the findings, it was concluded that the possibility of a degree of correlation between specific curiosity variables and levels of print awareness suggests the need for further research in this area. In the print awareness tasks, it was concluded that the more context available to children the greater their ability to respond appropriately to print. Knowledge of print in the environment was more advanced than knowledge of print in books for some of the children in the study.

Children typically acquire language rapidly during their first few years of life. Their rates and levels of proficiency vary, but it is clear that the development of one’s language repertoire impacts academic outcomes and future success across many domains. There are both genetic and environmental factors that affect and contribute to one’s development. For children whose vocal verbal behavior is less well developed, it is imperative that we continue to develop and implement tactics and procedures to intervene in order to accelerate their language development. Researchers have identified Naming as a critical verbal developmental capability that allows one to learn language incidentally. Are there different types of Naming capabilities? Do properties of stimuli affect language acquisition? Does the Naming repertoire relate to children’s level of curiosity about the world around them? In the 3 experiments that follow, I examined the effects of 2 types of Naming experiences and varying properties of visual stimuli on measures of Naming. In Experiments 2 and 3, I also conducted measures of curiosity to assess the possibility of a relationship between Naming and question asking. In my first experiment there were 31 participants. I investigated the effects of match-to-sample and exclusion Naming experiences on incidental acquisition of listener and speaker responses in both adults without disabilities and youth with disabilities. I examined the differences between the 2 age groups and Naming experiences. The adult means of listener and speaker responses were greater than the youth means. All adults met criterion for Naming with the match-to-sample experience, and 9 of 14 adults also achieved criterion levels with the unfamiliar stimuli following the exclusion Naming experience. The adult group’s results showed that the group’s Naming repertoire was fairly balanced for listener responses across the Naming experiences with minimal variability, and its speaker repertoire was not as balanced. The youth group’s results demonstrated similar levels of variability across both topographies. The effect of the Naming experience was significant for speaker responses. In the second experiment, I implemented an intervention to try to establish unfamiliar stimuli as reinforcers to test its effects on the 2 types of Naming probes and curiosity measures in 6 elementary age children with disabilities. There were some effects from the treatment, but following 2 intervention conditions none of the participants met criteria for Naming. The participants’ numbers of accurate listener responses were greater than their speaker responses. In Experiment 3, I conducted tests for curiosity and Naming with sets of stimuli that had varying levels of familiarity and complexity for 9 preschool age children with and without disabilities. As with the first 2 experiments, the numbers of listener responses for participants were greater than their speaker responses, and there was more variability in the speaker responses compared to the listener responses. The results suggested that the type of Naming experience or the familiarity level of the visual stimuli alone did not appear to influence the dependent variables, but rather that there may be an interaction among the independent variables. The means of responses were greater with more familiar stimuli following match-to-sample experiences whereas the means were greater with less familiar stimuli following the exclusionary Naming experiences. The results of the 3 experiments affirmed the independence of the listener and speaker components of Naming and suggest that the demonstration of Naming with unknown, unfamiliar types of stimuli may be a type of Naming capability that may not be present in all individuals who demonstrate Naming with unknown, familiar stimuli.

This study investigated the development of curiosity in young children. A previous study by Kreitler, Zigler, and Kreitler had identified five specific types of curiosity, manipulatory curiosity, perceptual curiosity, conceptual curiosity, curiosity about the complex, and adjustive-reactive curiosity. The basic problem was to describe the development of these five types of curiosity in three-, four-, and five-year-old children. A secondary problem was to determine if children follow a predictable pattern in their development of the five types of curiosity. Five tasks, measuring nineteen variables of curiosity, were administered individually to thirty three-year-olds, thirty four-year-olds, and thirty five-year-olds by a trained rater. Mean scores for each variable and each type of curiosity were calculated for each group.

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