Effective curiosity-driven learning requires recognizing that the value of evidence for testing
hypotheses depends on what other hypotheses are under consideration. Do we intuitively …

Previous research has suggested that active engagement with the world drives children's
remarkable learning capabilities. We investigated whether preschoolers are “ecological …

Motivated by computational analyses, we look at how teaching affects exploration and
discovery. In Experiment 1, we investigated children's exploratory play after an adult …

Probabilistic models of expected information gain require integrating prior knowledge about
causal hypotheses with knowledge about possible actions that might generate data relevant …

Decades of research indicate that some of the epistemic practices that support scientific
enquiry emerge as part of intuitive reasoning in early childhood. Here, we ask whether …

When someone encounters an explanation perceived as weak, this may lead to a feeling of
deprivation or tension that can be resolved by engaging in additional learning. This study …

Children are active learners: they learn not only from the information people offer and the
evidence they happen to observe, but by actively seeking information. However, children's …

Humans are driven by an intrinsic motivation to learn, but the developmental origins of
curiosity‐driven exploration remain unclear. We investigated the computational principles …

Children seem to learn about the causal structure of the world even in the absence of formal
training. One possibility is that children can learn causal relationships from evidence …

Researchers, educators, and parents have long believed that children learn cause and
effect relationships through exploratory play. However, previous research suggests that …