Probing Perceptual Uncertainty to Examine the Relationship between Curiosity and Confidence

The article examines how curiosity relates to uncertainty and confidence, focusing on perceptual curiosity. Traditional frameworks distinguish perceptual curiosity (drive for sensory information, often triggered by ambiguity/novelty) from epistemic curiosity (desire for knowledge and understanding). Prior work suggests curiosity arises from uncertainty created by gaps between what one knows and wants to know. Studies of epistemic curiosity have shown an inverted U-shaped relationship between confidence and curiosity, with peak curiosity at intermediate confidence levels, and engagement of motivation/reward-related brain areas. However, the neural mechanisms bridging uncertainty, confidence, and curiosity remain unclear, particularly how uncertainty representations are generated by typical tasks (e.g., trivia) and translated into confidence signals that drive curiosity. The reviewed study (Cohanpour et al., 2024) tests a proposal that visual cortical representations of sensory uncertainty are interpreted by higher-order regions (e.g., vmPFC, ACC) to produce confidence signals that, in turn, generate curiosity.

Background literature links curiosity to uncertainty reduction (Loewenstein, 1994) and shows information seeking across species, including when information lacks immediate utility (Ajuwon et al., 2023). Epistemic curiosity studies using trivia questions found an inverted U-shaped confidence–curiosity relation and recruitment of prefrontal reward/motivation regions (Kang et al., 2009). Perceptual uncertainty representations are better established in visual cortex; higher-level areas such as occipitotemporal cortex (OTC) support recognition of complex natural stimuli (MacEvoy & Epstein, 2011). Confidence judgments involve higher-order frontal circuits that transform lower-order representations into confidence decisions; vmPFC encodes early confidence signals in perceptual decisions (Gherman & Philiastides, 2018). OFC is required for optimal waiting based on decision confidence in rats without affecting accuracy (Lak et al., 2014), and ACC contributes to using confidence cues to adjust behavior under visual uncertainty (Stolyarova et al., 2019). A network including vmPFC, OFC, and ACC underpins uncertainty and confidence processing. Additionally, ACC and basal ganglia neurons can predict availability of information about uncertain rewards, motivating information-seeking actions (White et al., 2019).

Participants (N=32) underwent fMRI while performing a perceptual curiosity task. During each trial, participants viewed ambiguous images (“texforms”) created by uniformly distorting clear images of animals and man-made objects so that the distortion level was constant across images. For each texform, participants guessed the identity of the original undistorted image, then rated their confidence in their guess and their curiosity to see the original. The original image was then shown. After the main task, participants completed an unannounced localizer task viewing clear (undistorted) images of animals and objects not previously shown. Using OTC activity patterns from the localizer, the authors constructed neural templates for animal and object categories. For each texform, they computed an “OTC Certainty” value by comparing OTC multivariate activity during texform viewing (from the main task) to the category templates, yielding a measure of sensory certainty about category membership. They then related OTC Certainty to self-reported confidence and curiosity. Univariate fMRI analyses assessed activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in relation to confidence and curiosity ratings. Mediation analyses tested whether activity in these confidence-related regions explained the relationship between OTC Certainty (sensory uncertainty representation) and curiosity, by comparing the effect of OTC Certainty on curiosity with and without controlling for vmPFC and ACC activity.

• Behavioral: A negative quadratic relationship between perceptual curiosity and confidence was observed, with curiosity peaking at relatively low confidence levels (i.e., greater uncertainty elicited more curiosity).
• Multivariate sensory certainty: OTC Certainty was positively correlated with confidence ratings and negatively correlated with curiosity ratings, indicating that neural signals reflecting higher sensory certainty align with higher confidence and lower curiosity.
• Univariate frontal signals: Activity in vmPFC and ACC was positively associated with confidence and negatively associated with curiosity.
• Mediation: Controlling for vmPFC activity reduced the effect of OTC Certainty on curiosity, indicating vmPFC partially mediates the link between sensory uncertainty representations and curiosity. No similar mediation effect was found for ACC, suggesting a distinct process underlies ACC’s relation to curiosity.

Findings support a mechanism where multivariate representations of sensory uncertainty in visual cortex (OTC) are transformed by higher-order regions into univariate confidence signals that drive the generation of curiosity. The positive association between OTC-derived certainty and confidence, and the negative association with curiosity, align with the idea that greater certainty reduces the drive to seek information. vmPFC’s partial mediation suggests it is a key node translating sensory uncertainty into subjective confidence signals that influence curiosity. ACC activity tracked confidence and curiosity but did not mediate the OTC Certainty–curiosity link in this paradigm, implying ACC may contribute via a separate process, potentially more related to motivating resolution. The study extends prior epistemic curiosity work by identifying a concrete perceptual-neural pathway linking uncertainty, confidence, and curiosity, highlighting overlapping prefrontal involvement across curiosity types while also revealing differences (e.g., peak curiosity at lower, not intermediate, confidence). These results provide a framework for integrating perceptual uncertainty computations with motivational states that drive information seeking.

The article proposes that neural representations of sensory uncertainty give rise to confidence signals in higher-order cortex, which in turn generate curiosity. This framework advances understanding of the neural basis of curiosity by connecting perceptual uncertainty to subjective confidence and motivational drive. Future research should: (1) investigate mechanisms of curiosity resolution, including how lack of guaranteed resolution affects motivation and neural circuitry (e.g., ACC involvement); and (2) directly compare epistemic and perceptual curiosity to delineate shared and distinct neural mechanisms and resolve differences in the confidence–curiosity relationship.

The task guaranteed resolution by always revealing the original image after ratings, so the study did not probe motivation to resolve curiosity or how uncertainty about resolution would affect behavior and neural mechanisms. ACC did not mediate the OTC Certainty–curiosity link here, which may reflect the task’s guaranteed resolution and could underestimate ACC’s role in motivating relief of curiosity. Direct comparisons between epistemic and perceptual curiosity were not performed, limiting inferences about shared versus distinct mechanisms.