RTG 2906 Curiosity

Curiosity is broadly defined as an impulse to acquire more information about specific aspects of our environment. Despite an explosion of research on curiosity, there remain key challenges to our understanding of this construct. Across three research areas, RTG 2906 will seek to broaden our understanding of curiosity with regards to (1) the factors driving differences in the extent to which curiosity manifests across species and across development, (2) the consequences of enlisting curiosity-driven behaviour in specific settings and (3) simulating biological curiosity in neural network models of cognitive function. Bringing together researchers from diverse fields such as psychology, behavioural biology, systems and theoretical neuroscience, RTG 2906 aims to characterise the biological, neuropsychological and computational underpinnings of curiosity.

RTG 2906 Curiosity will comprise of thirteen PhD projects, each of which is assigned to a primary research area, with links to other research areas. RTG 2906 will also include postdoctoral researchers who will undertake overarching research projects connecting the different research areas.

The scientists in RTG 2906 have the opportunity to conduct studies on human infant and adult participants, as well as nonhuman primates and to work using a variety of modelling approaches. Researchers investigating nonhuman primates will have access to wild study populations via the German Primate Center infrastructure (field stations in Thailand and Madagascar) and captive study populations at Nuremberg Zoo. Researchers investigating human behaviour will work in state-of-the-art labs at Georg-August-University Göttingen, the European Neuroscience Institute (ENI-G) and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization.

Doctoral researchers will be provided with a tailor-made, interdisciplinary training programme and will have the opportunity to take part in a range of methods and theory courses, regular summer schools and retreats. RTG members will have the opportunity to present their work at national and international conferences and undertake research stays in research groups in Germany and abroad. Every effort will be made to ensure that researchers with special needs and care commitments are supported in their research.