Despite widespread consensus among educators that active learning leads to better
outcomes than comparatively passive forms of instruction, it is often unclear why these …

A key component of interacting with the world is how to direct ones' sensors so as to extract
task-relevant information—a process referred to as active sensing. In this review, we present …

This article provides a synthesis and overview of a theory of cognitive development, rational
constructivism. The basic tenets of this view are as follows:(a) Initial state: Human infants …

Intuitively, children appear to be more exploratory than adults, and this exploration seems to
help children learn,. However, there have been few clear tests of these ideas. We test …

Higher-level cognition depends on the ability to learn models of the world. We can
characterize this at the computational level as a structure-learning problem with the goal of …

Constructivist views of cognitive development often converge on 2 key points:(a) the child's
goal is to build large conceptual structures for understanding the world, and (b) the child …

Why do some (and only some) observations prompt people to ask “why?” We propose a
functional approach to “Explanation-Seeking Curiosity”(ESC): the state that motivates …

For years, adult psychological research has benefitted from web-based data collection.
There is growing interest in harnessing this approach to facilitate data collection from …

The ability to act on the world with the goal of gaining information is core to human
adaptability and intelligence. Perhaps the most successful and influential account of such …

To understand human learning and progress, it is crucial to understand curiosity. But how
consistent is curiosity's conception and assessment across scientific research disciplines …