Monkeys pay for non-strategic information: information about a reward is worth about 25% of the reward's value¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2015 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2020: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i? In the curiosity tradeoff task, monkeys' value of information about a reward equals about 25% of the reward's own value, despite the information providing no strategic benefit. → Kidd 2015 q2 i? The value of information increases with the stakes of the gamble. → Kidd 2015 (2)

Evidence¶

Kidd 2015¶

Kidd, Celeste and Hayden, Benjamin Y. (2015). The psychology and neuroscience of curiosity. Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review describes the authors' curiosity tradeoff task (Blanchard, Hayden, & Bromberg-Martin, 2015), in which monkeys chose between gambles differing only in whether they offered immediate information about win or loss. The indifference-point titration showed "the value of information about a reward is about 25% of the value of the reward itself".

"by determining the indifference point between informative and uninformative options, we found that the value of information about a reward is about 25% of the value of the reward itself—surprisingly high."

Kidd 2015 (2)¶

Kidd, Celeste and Hayden, Benjamin Y. (2015). The psychology and neuroscience of curiosity. Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review reports from the same curiosity tradeoff task that "the value of information increases with the stakes": monkeys pay more for information about a high-stakes gamble than a low-stakes one. The review notes similar findings in pigeons choosing risky options with discriminative cues.

"In addition, the value of information increases with the stakes."

Discussion¶

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`claim`
`id`	`monkeys-value-information-25-percent-of-reward`
`title`	`Monkeys pay for non-strategic information: information about a reward is worth about 25% of the reward's value`
`description`	`Monkeys pay for non-strategic information: information about a reward is worth about 25% of the reward's value`
`status`	`review`
`evidence_strength`	`moderate`
`newest_evidence`	`2015`
`recheck_by`	`2020`
`generated`	by `process:wiki-ingest` on `2026-10-17`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	2 — `kidd-2015`, `kidd-2015-2`

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