What we think we know – but might not – pushes us to learn more

If you think you know the farm animal most closely related to T-Rex, or the American president who inspired the creation of blueberry jelly beans — but aren’t quite sure — you’re more likely to bone up on the chicken-dinosaur connection or Ronald Reagan’s predilection for glazed, gel-filled candies. “It’s very in vogue to talk about curiosity as a strategy to increase learning, but it’s unclear how to engage people’s curiosity,” said study senior author Celeste Kidd, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. In the learning phase of the experiment, each study participant gave their best guess in response to each trivia question, and whether they thought their answer was correct.

Source: news.berkeley.edu