Without feedback, people are more curious about high-confidence errors than about equally high-confidence correct answers, replicated across experiments¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? In the absence of feedback, curiosity at high confidence was greater for errors than for correct answers. → Metcalfe 2023 q3 i? The same high-confidence error curiosity advantage appeared in a direct between-participants contrast of curiosity versus subjective uncertainty ratings. → Metcalfe 2023 (2)

Evidence¶

Metcalfe 2023¶

Metcalfe, J., Vuorre, M., Towner, E., & Eich, T. S. (2023). Curiosity: The effects of feedback and confidence on the desire to know. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, vol. 152, no. 2, pp. 464-482. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001284

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Post hoc contrast in Experiment 2's no-feedback condition at confidence = 90: "high-confidence errors were associated with greater curiosity than were high-con fidence correct answers" (Difference = 14.69, pd > 99.9%). The pilot experiment replicated it (Difference = 23.39, pd > 99.9%).

"This contrast indicated that high-confidence errors were associated with greater curiosity than were high-con fidence correct answers (Difference = 14.69, SE = 2.56, 95% CI [9.86,"

Metcalfe 2023 (2)¶

Metcalfe, J., Vuorre, M., Towner, E., & Eich, T. S. (2023). Curiosity: The effects of feedback and confidence on the desire to know. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, vol. 152, no. 2, pp. 464-482. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001284

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Experiment 4, 98 online adults randomly assigned to curiosity or subjective-uncertainty rating conditions with no feedback. The curiosity condition showed the high-confidence error advantage (Difference = 7.22, pd = 99.9%), while the subjective-uncertainty difference at confidence 90 was not significant (Difference = 3.36, pd = 92.2%).

"A post hoc test of differences in curiosity between errors and correct responses, at con fidence = 90, showed that high-confidence errors were associated with greater curiosity than were high-con fidence correct answers (Difference ="

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Curiosity ratings are functionally distinct from subjective uncertainty ratings: uncertainty declines near-linearly with confidence while curiosity is inverted-U shaped — related
• Second-order metacognitive judgments of subjective uncertainty show a small high-confidence error/correct difference, smaller than curiosity ratings show — related
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