Measuring and predicting variation in the interestingness of physical structures

Curiosity drives much of human behavior, but its open-ended nature makes it hard to study in the laboratory. Moreover, computational theories of curiosity – models of how intrinsic motivation promotes complex behaviors – have been challenging to test because of technical limits. To circumvent this problem, we develop a new way to assess intrinsic motivation for building: we assume people build what they find interesting, so we asked them to rate the “interestingness” of visual stimuli – in this case, simple block towers. Adults gave a range of ratings to towers built by children, with taller towers rated higher. To probe interestingness further, we developed controlled tower stimuli in a simulated 3D environment. While tower height predicted much of the variation in ratings, people also favored more precarious towers, as inferred from geometric features and simulated dynamics. These ratings and features therefore give a clear target for computational accounts of curiosity to explain.