People adaptively use information to improve their internal states and external outcomes

Three diverse motives for information sharing

Knowledge is distributed over many individuals. Thus, humans are tasked with informing one another for the betterment of all. But as information can alter people's action, affect and cognition in both positive and negative ways, deciding whether to share information can be a particularly difficult problem. Here, we examine how people integrate potentially conflicting consequences of knowledge, to decide whether to inform others. We show that participants (Exp1: N = 114, Pre-registered replication: N = 102) use their own information-seeking preferences to solve complex information-sharing decisions. In particular, when deciding whether to inform others, participants consider the usefulness of information in directing action, its valence and the receiver's uncertainty level, and integrate these assessments into a calculation of the value of information that explains information sharing decisions. A cluster analysis revealed that participants were clustered into groups based on the different weights they assign to these three factors. Within individuals, the relative influence of each of these factors was stable across information-seeking and information-sharing decisions. These results suggest that people put themselves in a receiver position to determine whether to inform others and can help predict when people will share information.

"How" web searches change under stress

To adjust to stressful environments, people seek information. Here, we show that in response to stressful public and private events the high-level features of information people seek online alter, reflecting their motives for seeking knowledge. We first show that when people want information to guide action they selectively ask "How" questions. Next, we reveal that "How" searches submitted to Google increased dramatically during the pandemic (controlling for search volume). Strikingly, the proportion of these searches predicted weekly self-reported stress of ~ 17K individuals. To rule out third factors we manipulate stress and find that "How" searches increase in response to stressful, personal, events. The findings suggest that under stress people ask questions to guide action, and mental state is reflected in features that tap into why people seek information rather than the topics they search for. Tracking such features may provide clues regrading population stress levels.

A neural mechanism for conserved value computations integrating information and rewards

Behavioral and economic theory dictate that we decide between options based on their values. However, humans and animals eagerly seek information about uncertain future rewards, even when this does not provide any objective value. This implies that decisions are made by endowing information with subjective value and integrating it with the value of extrinsic rewards, but the mechanism is unknown. Here, we show that human and monkey value judgements obey strikingly conserved computational principles during multi-attribute decisions trading off information and extrinsic reward. We then identify a neural substrate in a highly conserved ancient structure, the lateral habenula (LHb). LHb neurons signal subjective value, integrating information's value with extrinsic rewards, and the LHb predicts and causally influences ongoing decisions. Neurons in key input areas to the LHb largely signal components of these computations, not integrated value signals. Thus, our data uncover neural mechanisms of conserved computations underlying decisions to seek information about the future.

Multifaceted information-seeking motives in children

From an early age, children need to gather information to learn about their environment. Deciding which knowledge to pursue can be difficult because information can serve several, sometimes competing, purposes. Here, we examine the developmental trajectories of such diverse information-seeking motives. Over five experiments involving 521 children (aged 4-12), we find that school-age children integrate three key factors into their information-seeking choices: whether information reduces uncertainty, is useful in directing action, and is likely to be positive. Choices that likely reveal positive information and are useful for action emerge as early as age 4, followed by choices that reduce uncertainty (at ~age 5). Our results suggest that motives related to usefulness and uncertainty reduction become stronger with age, while the tendency to seek positive news does not show a statistically significant change throughout development. This study reveals how the relative importance of diverging, sometimes conflicting, information-seeking motives emerges throughout development.