Conflict, Arousal and Curiosity

366 Pages·1960·25.48 MB·English

by  D. E. Berlyne

CONFLICT, AROUSAL, AND CURIOSITY
McGRAW-HILL SERIES IN PSYCHOLOGY
NORMAN GARMEZY, HARRY F. HARLOW, LYLE V. JONES,
and HAROLD W. STEVENSON, Consulting Editors
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to 1965. In 1965 a Board of Consulting Editors was established according to areas of
The board members are Harry F. Harlow (physiological, experimental psychology1),
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and Lyle V. Jones (statistical, quantitative).

u
CONFLICT, AROUSAL,
AND CURIOSITY
D. E. Berlyne
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY
New York Toronto London
1960
CONFLICT, AROUSAL, AND CURIOSITY
Copyright © 1960 by McGraw-Hill, Inc. Printed in the United States of
America. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be
reproduced in any form without permission of the publishers. Library
of Congress Catalog Card Number 60-8017.
04875
6789101112-COCO-1098
In the same manner, we must condemn those who employ that curiosity
and love of knowledge which nature has implanted in the human soul upon
low and worthless objects, while they neglect such as are excellent and
useful. Our senses, indeed, by an effect almost mechanical, are passive to
the impression of outside objects, whether agreeable or offensive; but the
mind, possessed of a self-directing power, may turn its attention to whatever
it thinks proper. It should, therefore, be employed in the most useful pur-
suits, not barely in contemplation but in such contemplation as may nourish
its faculties.
(Plutarch, Life of Pericles)
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
(Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, no. 150)
I loathe that low vice, curiosity.
(Byron, Don Juan)
Pretendre qu'il ne faut pas changer de vins est une heresie; la langue se
sature; et apres le troisieme verre le meilleur vin n'eveille plus qu'une
sensation obtuse.
(J.-A. Brillat-Savarin, Physiologie du gout)
N'est-ce pas un premier element de complexity ordonnee, e'est-a-dire de
beaute, quand en entendant une rime, e'est-a-dire quelque chose qui est
a la fois pareille et autre que la rime precedente, qui est motivee par elle,
mais y introduit la variation d'une idee nouvelle, on sent deux systemes
qui se superposent, Tun de pensee, l'autre de metrique?
(Marcel Proust, Le Cote de Guermantes) *
The philosophic brain responds to an inconsistency or a gap in its knowl-
edge, just as the musical brain responds to a discord in what it hears.
(William James, Principles of Psychology)
Prudens interrogate quasi dimidium scientiae. (Judicious questioning is
virtually the half of knowledge.)
(Anonymous motto)
* Librairie Gallimard. Tous droits reserves.

PREFACE
The topics that are to be treated in this book were unduly neglected
by psychology for many years but are now beginning to come to the
fore. My own researches into attention and exploratory behavior began
in 1947, and at about the same time several other psychologists became
independently impressed with the importance of these matters and
started to study them experimentally. It is interesting that those were
also the years when information theory was making its appearance
and when the reticular formation of the brain stem was first attracting
the notice of neurophysiologists. What came out of these two develop-
ments is, as we shall see, of the utmost relevance to our inquiry.
During the last ten years, the tempo of research into exploratory
behavior and related phenomena has been steadily quickening. This
research has gone on in a number of countries, but mostly in those
where English or Russian is spoken. The book is prompted by the
feeling that it is now time to pause and take stock: to review relevant
data contributed by several different specialties, to consider what con-
clusions, whether firm or tentative, are justified at the present juncture,
and to clarify what remains to be done. The primary aim of the book is,
in fact, to raise problems. The process of raising problems is often hard
to separate from the process of suggesting solutions to problems. I
should not like to guess how long my own attempts at theory will sur-
vive the cumulative erosion of future research, although I have
endeavored to keep them in line with available data. They will, how-
ever, amply serve their purpose if the problems they bring into view
are recognized as ripe for an all-out onslaught on the part of experi-
menters and theoreticians alike. These problems are worth intensive
and methodical study, not because they form a picturesque backwater
that psychologists may enjoy taking a look at when not otherwise
occupied, but because, until we are less ignorant about them, our
knowledge of general psychological principles must be sadly deficient,
even in the areas that have received most study.
The book is intended as a contribution to behavior theory, i.e., to
psychology conceived as a branch of science with the circumscribed
objective of explaining and predicting behavior. But interest in atten-
tion and exploratory behavior and in other topics indissociably bound
up with them, such as art, humor and thinking, has by no means been
confined to professional psychologists. I have had to assume the kind
of previous knowledge that is contained in introductory textbooks on
psychology. Nevertheless, I have tried to supply enough explanation
for the nonpsychologist not to feel lost. This has obliged me, here and
there, to give information that will seem trite to the specialist.
The book has two features that would have surprised me when I
first set out to plan it. One is that it ends up sketching a highly modi-
fied form of drive-reduction theory. Drive-reduction theory has
appeared more and more to be full of shortcomings, even for the
phenomena that it was originally designed to handle. Facts about
exploratory behavior, etc., are often summoned to administer the coup
de grace. It would be ironical if, after all, the study of curiosity pro-
vided this type of theory with its firmest stronghold, and if the study
of the role of curiosity in learning as a whole served to buttress its
claim to far-ranging jurisdiction. There can, however, be little doubt
that more satisfactory formulations will come to light before long and
replace it.
The second surprising feature is the prominence of neurophysiology.
Up to about ten years ago, behavior theorists tended largely to keep
aloof from neurophysiological data, and "neurologizing" became a
term of abuse. It was felt that the psychologist had his own distinct
work to do without following the physiologist like a jackal, and what
was then known about the nervous system seemed too flimsy to be of
much use. Recently things have changed. Momentous discoveries about
the nervous system are now coming in at a rate that leaves the psy-
chologist with hardly enough time to catch his breath, let alone digest
them unhurriedly as they demand. In the areas with which this book is
concerned, it would be too much to say that a clear neurophysiological
picture is already taking shape. But there is certainly a mass of closely
relevant data that nobody interested in our topics can afford to over-
look. Moreover, the techniques for testing hypotheses about the physio-
logical processes underlying attention and exploration are readily
available. Theoretical assumptions like those presented can, if one
insists, be shorn of their physiological content and treated as pure
"molar behavior theory." But to construct such theory without taking
advantage of the guidance that neurophysiology is now in a position
to offer would be improvident in the extreme.
There remains the pleasant task of acknowledging indebtedness to
persons and organizations who have helped in the work of which the
book is an outgrowth. I have been fortunate enough to spend three
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