ArticleScientific reports2021
Choosing increases the value of non-instrumental information.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Modeling information demand in the framework of probabilistic reasoning.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Knowledge Gap Illustrations Spark Curiosity.Journal of cognition · 2026Article
- The Value of Non-Instrumental Information in Anxiety: Insights from a Resource-Rational Model of Planning.Computational psychiatry (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Neural dynamics underlying the illusion of control during reward processing.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Article
- Non-instrumental information seeking is resistant to acute stress.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Curiosity evolves as information unfolds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- When knowledge hurts: humans are willing to receive pain for obtaining non-instrumental information.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Hedonism as a motive for information search: biased information-seeking leads to biased beliefs.Scientific reports · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Curiosity pervades all aspects of human behaviour and decision-making. Recent research indicates that the value of information is determined by its propensity to reduce uncertainty, and the hedonic value of the outcomes it predicts. Previous findings also indicate a preference for options that are freely chosen, compared to equivalently valued alternatives that are externally assigned. Here, we asked whether the value of information also varies as a function of self- or externally-imposed choices. Participants rated their preference for information that followed either a self-chosen decision, or an externally imposed condition. Our results showed that choosing a lottery significantly increased the subjective value of information about the outcome. Computational modelling indicated that this change in information-seeking behaviour was not due to changes in the subjective probability of winning, but instead reflected an independent effect of choosing on the value of resolving uncertainty. These results demonstrate that agency over a prospect is an important source of information value.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.