Monkeys are Curious about Counterfactual Outcomes

Abstract

While many non-human animals show basic exploratory behaviors, it remains unclear whether any animals possess human-like curiosity. We propose that human-like curiosity satisfies three formal criteria: (1) willingness to pay (or to sacrifice reward) to obtain information, (2) that the information provides no instrumental or strategic benefit (and the subject understands this), and (3) the amount the subject is willing to pay scales with the amount of information available. Although previous work, including our own, demonstrates that some animals will sacrifice juice rewards for information, that information normally predicts upcoming rewards and their ostensible curiosity may therefore be a byproduct of reinforcement processes. Here we get around this potential confound by showing that macaques sacrifice juice to obtain information about counterfactual outcomes (outcomes that could have occurred had the subject chosen differently). Moreover, willingness-to-pay scales with the information (Shannon entropy) offered by the counterfactual option. These results demonstrate human-like curiosity in non-human animals according to our strict criteria, which circumvent several confounds associated with less stringent criteria.