The Beneficial Role of Curiosity on Route memory in Children

We assessed the influence of trait and state curiosity on route memory. Forty-two 10-year-old children with low and high-trait curiosity (20 Females; 22 Males) actively explored virtual environments that elicited varying levels of uncertainty (i.e., state-curiosity). As trait curiosity increased, so did memory performance in low and high uncertainty conditions, suggesting that high-curiosity children can better recruit cognitive resources within non-optimal environments. Children with high compared to low curiosity also reported greater feelings of presence during exploration. Importantly, in environments with medium uncertainty, children with low trait curiosity were able to perform as well as those with high curiosity. Results show that individual differences in trait curiosity influence route learning, and interact dynamically with state-curiosity invoked within different environments.