No abstract

Curiosity drives information seeking and promotes learning. Prior work has focused on how curiosity is elicited by intrinsic qualities of information, leaving open questions about how curiosity, exploration, and learning are shaped by the environment. Here we examine how temporal dynamics of the learning environment shape curiosity and learning. Participants (n = 71) foraged for the answer to trivia questions in two conditions that differed only in their temporal statistics. In one condition, the timing of information delivery followed a uniform distribution, while in another it followed a heavy-tailed distribution. We found that the two conditions elicited distinct responses in both behavior and pupil dilation: participants were more likely to wait for information and to later remember it in the uniform distribution. By contrast, participants showed greater surprise, evidenced in a spike in pupil dilation, when presented with the answers in the heavy-tailed distribution. Furthermore, pupil dilation was inversely related to curiosity and memory, suggesting that temporal uncertainty may interfere with the positive effects of curiosity on learning. Our findings demonstrate that the predicted timing of information delivery influences information seeking, memory, and physiological arousal, suggesting that information is best learned when it is both intrinsically interesting and presented within a temporally predictable environment.

Moral perceptions of harm and fairness are instrumental in guiding how an individual navigates moral challenges. Classic research documents that the gender of a target can affect how people deploy these perceptions of harm and fairness. Across multiple studies, we explore the effect of an individual’s moral orientations (their considerations of harm and justice) and a target’s gender on altruistic behavior. Results reveal that a target’s gender can bias one’s readiness to engage in harmful actions and that a decider’s considerations of harm—but not fairness concerns—modulate costly altruism. Together, these data illustrate that moral choices are conditional on the social nature of the moral dyad: Even under the same moral constraints, a target’s gender and a decider’s gender can shift an individual’s choice to be more or less altruistic, suggesting that gender bias and harm considerations play a significant role in moral cognition.

When we face danger or stress, the presence of others can provide a powerful signal of safety and support. However, despite a large literature on group living benefits in animals, few studies have been conducted on how group size alters subjective emotional responses and threat perception in humans. We conducted 5 experiments (N = 3,652) to investigate whether the presence of others decreases fear in response to threat under a variety of conditions. In Studies 1, 2 and 3, we experimentally manipulated group size in hypothetical and real-world situations and found that fear responses decreased as group size increased. In Studies 4 and 5 we again used a combination of hypothetical and real-world decisions to test whether increased anxiety in response to a potential threat would lead participants to choose larger groups for themselves. Participants consistently chose larger groups when threat and anxiety were high. Overall, our findings show that group size provides a salient signal of protection and safety in humans.

On a daily basis, we place our lives in the hands of strangers. From dentists to pilots, we make inferences about their competence to perform their jobs and consequently to keep us from harm. Here we explore whether the perceived competence of others can alter one's anticipation of pain. In two studies, participants (Receivers) believed their chances of experiencing an aversive stimulus were directly dependent on the performance of another person (Players). We predicted that perceiving the Players as highly competent would reduce Receivers' anxiety when anticipating the possibility of an electric shock. Results confirmed that high competence ratings consistently corresponded with lower reported anxiety, and complementary fMRI data showed that increased competence perception was further expressed as decreased activity in the bilateral posterior insula, a region localized to actual pain stimulation. These studies suggest that inferences of competence act as predictors of protection and reduce the expectation of negative outcomes.