07/09/2024
Fantastic research:
The brain-scan data showed high activity in the occipitotemporal cortex (OTC), a region located just above your ears, which has long been known to be involved in vision and in recognizing categories of objects.
Three pairs of texforms showing unrecognizable and clear versions of objects. Based on previous studies, the researchers expected that when they presented participants with clear images, this brain region would show distinct activity patterns for animate and inanimate objects. "You can think of each pattern as a 'barcode' identifying the texform category," Dr. Gottlied said.
Also active during the texform presentations were two regions in the front of the brain. One is the anterior cingulate cortex, which previous studies implicated in information gathering. The other is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which is involved in monitoring a person's subjective perceptions of value and confidence about different situations. In the new study, both areas were more active when subjects reported being more confident in knowing a texform's identity (and thus, less curious to see the clarified image).
Importantly, said Dr. Gottlieb, vmPFC activity seemed to provide a neurological bridge between the subjective feeling of curiosity and the OTC certainty measure. It's as though this region read out the uncertainty encoded by the distributed activity pattern in the OTC and helped a person decide if they needed to be curious about the texform.
You look up into the clear blue sky and see something you can't quite identify. Is it a balloon? A plane? A UFO? You're curious, right? A research team based at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute has for the first time witnessed what is happening in the human brain when feelings of curiosity like this a...
