Epistemic Curiosity in Kea Parrots and Human Children

Both human children and animals seek information following a violation-of-expectation event, but little research suggests the latter do so for the sake of it. In this preregistered experiment, we compared epistemic curiosity-the pursuit of information for its own sake-in kea parrots (Nestor notabilis) and three-year-old human children (Homo sapiens) following a violation-of-expectation event. Subjects were trained to push a tool into an apparatus that produced a reward before the apparatus was surreptitiously made non-functional in following trials. In both functional and non-functional trials, after solving the task, subjects were rewarded and allowed to explore the apparatus for thirty seconds with the opportunity to peek into the side of the apparatus. We found that relatively more kea peeked than children, but the children and not the kea were significantly more likely to peek in the non-functional versus functional trials, particularly when the researcher was absent. While both species showed markers of curiosity in the experiment, we found expectancy-violation-induced epistemic curiosity only in the children and not the kea in this context.

University of California, Berkeley
Max Planck Institut für Evolutionsbiologie
University of St Andrews