Uncertainty increases curiosity, but decreases happiness

You probably know what kind of things you are curious about, but can you also explain what it feels like to be curious? Previous studies have demonstrated that we are particularly curious when uncertainty is high and when information provides us with a substantial update of what we know. It is unclear, however, whether this drive to seek information (curiosity) is appetitive or aversive. Curiosity might correspond to an appetitive drive elicited by the state of uncertainty, because we like that state, or rather it might correspond to an aversive drive to reduce the state of uncertainty, because we don’t like it. To investigate this, we obtained both subjective valence (happiness) and curiosity ratings from subjects who performed a lottery task that elicits uncertainty-dependent curiosity. We replicated a strong main effect of outcome uncertainty on curiosity: Curiosity increased with outcome uncertainty, irrespective of whether the outcome represented a monetary gain or loss. By contrast, happiness decreased with higher outcome uncertainty. This indicates that people were more curious, but less happy about lotteries with higher outcome uncertainty. These findings raise the hypothesis, to be tested in future work, that curiosity reflects an aversive drive to reduce the unpleasant state of uncertainty.

Curiosity: An appetitive or an aversive drive?

You probably know what kind of things you are curious about, but can you also explain what it feels like to be curious? Previous studies have demonstrated that we are particularly curious when uncertainty is high and when information provides us with a substantial update of what we know. It is unclear, however, whether this drive to seek information (curiosity) is appetitive or aversive. Curiosity might correspond to an appetitive drive elicited by the state of uncertainty, because we like that state, or rather it might correspond to an aversive drive to reduce the state of uncertainty, because we don’t like it. To investigate this, we obtained both subjective valence (happiness) and curiosity ratings from subjects who performed a lottery task that elicits uncertainty-dependent curiosity. We replicated a strong main effect of outcome uncertainty on curiosity: Curiosity increased with increasing outcome uncertainty, irrespective of whether the outcome represented a monetary gain or loss. By contrast, happiness decreased with higher outcome uncertainty. This indicates that people were more curious, but less happy about lotteries with higher outcome uncertainty. These results demonstrate that curiosity reflects an aversive drive to reduce the unpleasant state of uncertainty.

Theming, Co-Creation, and Quality of Structured Experiences at Camp

Lacanienta and his colleagues (2018) recently reported results of a study of the effect of themes on quality of experience of youths during summer camp activities. Existing literature suggested that theming activity sessions would have a strong main effect. Results, though, revealed an activity-by-theme interaction effect, i.e., themes seem to be effective in some activities but not others. In this follow-up study, we describe results of a secondary analysis revealing significant new insights regarding theme. Adding an indicator of campers’ co-created, lived-experience theme into the models tested substantially clarified how objective theme, lived-experience theme, and activity interact in influencing the quality of structured experiences. This study, then, underscores the importance of including measures of participants’ co-created lived experience as we seek to understand techniques that can be used to enhance the quality of youths’ structured camp experiences.

Perception and Familiarity of Diatonic Modes

In a prior study (Temperley & Tan, 2013), participants rated the “happiness” of melodies in different diatonic modes. A strong pattern was found, with happiness decreasing as scale steps were lowered. We wondered: Does this pattern reflect the familiarity of diatonic modes? The current study examines familiarity directly. In the experiments reported here, college students without formal music training heard a series of melodies, each with a three-measure beginning (“context”) in a diatonic mode and a one-measure ending that was either in the context mode or in a mode that differed from the context by one scale degree. Melodies were constructed using four pairs of modes with the same tonic: Lydian/Ionian, Ionian/Mixolydian, Dorian/Aeolian, and Aeolian/Phrygian. Participants rated how well the ending “fit” the context. Two questions were of interest: (1) Do listeners give higher ratings to some modes (as endings) overall? (2) Do listeners give a higher rating to the ending if its mode matches that of the context? The results show a strong main effect of ending, with Ionian (major) and Aeolian (natural minor) as the most familiar (highly rated) modes. This aligns well with corpus data representing the frequency of different modes in popular music. There was also a significant interaction between ending and context, whereby listeners rated an ending higher if its mode matched the context. Our findings suggest that (1) our earlier “happiness” results cannot be attributed to familiarity alone, and (2) listeners without formal knowledge of diatonic modes are able to internalize diatonic modal frameworks.

Application of regulatory focus theory to search advertising

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the utility of regulatory focus theory principles in a real-world setting; specifically, Internet hosted text advertisements. Effect of compatibility of the ad text with the regulatory focus of the consumer was examined. Design/methodology/approach – Advertisements were created using Google AdWords. Data were collected for the number of views and clicks each ad received. Effect of regulatory fit was measured using logistic regression. Findings – Logistic regression analyses demonstrated that there was a strong main effect for keyword, such that users were almost six times as likely to click on a promotion advertisement as a prevention advertisement, as well as a main effect for compatibility, such that users were twice as likely to click on an advertisement with content that was consistent with their keyword. Finally, there was a strong interaction of these two variables, such that the effect of consistent advertisements was stronger for promotion searches than for prevention searches. Research limitations/implications – The effect of ad compatibility had medium to large effect sizes, suggesting that individuals’ state may have more influence on advertising response than do individuals’ traits (e.g. personality traits). Measurement of regulatory fit was limited by the constraints of Google AdWords. Practical implications – The results of this study provide a possible framework for ad creation for Internet advertisers. Originality/value – This paper is the first study to demonstrate the utility of regulatory focus theory in online advertising.

The Effect of Structural and Performance Factors in the Perception of Anacruses

WHEN A MELODY BEGINS WITH AN ANACRUSIS, (i.e.,"pick up" notes), rhythm and meter are out of phase. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the interactions between structural (rhythm and pitch) and performance (articulation and tempo) factors on the perception of anacruses. The independent variables were rhythmic figure, initial melodic direction, initial melodic interval, implied harmony, articulation, and tempo. Participants tapped "every other beat" to melodies composed for each experiment; the phase-alignment of taps with the stimulus was the dependent measure of anacrustic vs. non-anacrustic perception. Experiment 1 found a strong main effect for rhythmic figure and an interaction between rhythmic figure and tempo. Experiment 2 showed that as tempo increased there was a systematic shift toward anacrustic perception of some melodies. Experiment 3 found that in a rhythmically impoverished context, pitch-based structural factors had only a weak effect on the perception of anacrusis.