Enhancement of Memory Through Curiosity-Driven Learning

Introduction Curiosity is one of the major driving forces that compels people to learn and explore. The desire to relieve the anxiety of curiosity serves as an incentive, which is believed to cause people to search for answers. This can be beneficial but is also potentially dangerous in certain situations. According to Kang, Krajbich, McClure and Wang (2009), curiosity can also be beneficial as it is thought to enhance memory. According to Jepma, Verdonschot, van Steenbergen, Rombouts and Nieuwenhuis (2012), there are two different types of curiosity: perceptual and epistemic. In addition, there are two categories of each type of curiosity, specific and diversive. Perceptual curiosity is aroused by sensory factors that are novel, while epistemic curiosity is driven by the desire to learn and acquire information. Therefore, epistemic curiosity leads to intentional learning and perceptual curiosity leads an unintentional way of acquiring information. Furthermore, specific curiosity involves seeking information about a particular topic, and diversive curiosity involves the desire to learn about general information (Jepma et al., 2012). To assess the question of whether or not curiosity enhances memory, we analyzed all of the articles that had a measure of curiosity regarding a particular topic as well as a measure of memory recall after the study. This topic is important to study because characterizing the factors that mediate memory can help in making the educational system better by engaging students more in their classes and therefore raising grades. This can help students if they are able to learn more while studying something they are curious about. The curiosity that is involved in intentional learning (epistemic curiosity) would be the major determinant in enhancing memory in the educational system. We also, however, wanted to see the effect of perceptual curiosity on memory. Thus, this literature review is not specific towards a certain type of curiosity, but rather covers the broader topic that is curiosity.