Does repetition enhance curiosity to learn trivia question answers? Implications for memory and motivated learning

Curiosity, an intrinsic desire to seek new information, benefits motivation and learning. Whilecuriosity is associated with novelty, less is known about how the repetition of a questionwithout its answer affects curiosity and memory. In two experiments, participants viewed 60trivia questions, half of which were repeated, and rated their curiosity to learn the answers.Repeated questions had their answers revealed during the second presentation, andparticipants were given a cued-recall test after 24 h. We found that curiosity ratingsremained constant across presentations, but when repeated and non-repeated questionswere intermixed, participants were more curious about non-repeated questions, which wererelatively more novel (Experiment 1). However, when participants guessed answers beforestudying them (pretesting), they were more curious about repeated questions (Experiment2). Curiosity ratings also increased across presentations, perhaps reflecting greater cognitiveagency motivated by an eagerness to verify one’s guess. Overall, the subjective experienceof curiosity appears to be influenced by both relative novelty, as manipulated throughrepetition, and task demands, specifically whether individuals engage in pretesting,indicating that curiosity-based learning is shaped by various cognitive operations.