Virtual reality reveals that curiosity is key in shaping our spatial memory and mental map formation, finds new research by Cardiff University and Royal Holloway, University of London.
By using virtual reality to encourage people to explore virtual rooms, for the first time, researchers have uncovered the relationship between moment-to-moment changes in curiosity and the development of cognitive maps – the creation of mental representations of physical environments.
Cognitive maps, which represent our environment mentally, are believed to emerge from our curiosity to explore new spaces. However, the direct relationship between how curious we are about a particular space and the way we explore that space had previously not been tested.
In the study, participants explored 16 distinct virtual rooms, designed to encourage exploration. They were encouraged to explore the rooms without time constraints.
The participants' curiosity levels were captured in real-time, moment-by-moment, rating their curiosity before entering the virtual reality rooms and were later asked to complete a memory test to assess their spatial memory.
The researchers found that the more curious people felt before exploring a particular environment, the more they tended to explore the space. They also found that the more interesting people found a room, the more they would visually engage with the room. But individual differences played an important role in how curiosity was associated with spatial exploration.
Dr Gruber said: "People who can generally handle stress well showed the strongest impact of curiosity on exploration. These people acted more on their curiosity, which led to more exploration. Whereas people with lower stress tolerance did not act upon their curiosity as much. These findings suggest that a person's ability to deal with uncertainty strengthens the link between curiosity and exploration."
Curiosity is a spark for exploration. Our research reveals something exciting - people's comfort with uncertainty, their stress tolerance, amplifies the power of curiosity to drive exploration. These findings suggest new ways to design environments that encourage people to embrace the unknown.
Virtual reality research reveals that curiosity is key in spatial memory and mental map formation.
The more curious people were, and the more they explored the layout of the virtual reality rooms, the better they performed in the memory task.
The researchers believe these findings shed light on how curiosity drives exploration and helps us build mental maps of the world around us.
This is the first time that states of curiosity have been demonstrated to enhance spatial exploration and mental map formation.
"Understanding the influence of curiosity on human exploration has practical implications for architecture, urban planning, museums, and game designs. By harnessing curiosity, we can positively encourage exploration and memory in real-world or virtual environments.
"In this research, virtual reality has allowed us to expand our understanding of how moment-to-moment changes in situational curiosity can shape our inner world and how we perceive and remember our external world."
Dr Carl Hodgetts, from Royal Holloway, University of London, said: "What's particularly striking about these findings is that they weren't driven by a person's general trait level of curiosity, but rather by how curiosity fluctuated from moment to moment. This has exciting implications for designing real-world spaces and educational environments to better engage and inspire learning."
The research, Curiosity shapes spatial exploration and cognitive map formation in humans, was published in Communications Psychology.
