## Early roots of information-seeking:Infants predict and generalize the value of information ## ---------- This repository serves as the central storage for the data and the scripts of the project: ***Early roots of information-seeking:Infants predict and generalize the value of information*** ---------- Abstract -------- As humans, we learn continuously and under uncertainty. We gather information to build complex internal models of the world that enable us to interact with our surroundings. In this study we investigated the developmental origins of this information-seeking process. We presented 8-month-old infants with visual cues indicating whether they would later receive information about the location of a rewarding stimulus. We measured infants? pupil dilation as an index of their uncertainty. By employing a combination of additive Bayesian models and reinforcement learning models, we analyzed the unfolding of the pupil-dilation signal over time and disentangled the fundamental processes that support infants? information-seeking. We found that infants develop expectations about where to find information by exploiting the statistical regularities between the stimuli. Moreover, they quickly infer the expected informational value of novel cues via generalization of the features that are shared by novel and familiar cues. In summary, our study shows the fundamental learning mechanisms that support infants' information-seeking, and reveals how they leverage domain-general abilities such as statistical learning and generalization to build expectations about where to find information. Our study demonstrates that learning is an inherently active process that begins in the first year of life. Design -------- The experiment involved the use of four different shapes (two pointy and two smooth), which were presented in various sequences and movements on a screen. The shapes served as cues for the infants, signaling whether they would later receive information about the location of a rewarding stimulus (a cartoon animal). The presentation and movement of the shapes varied depending on the trial type (informative or uninformative). Pupillometry ------------ We measured infants' pupil dilation in response to the presentation of informative and uninformative cues before the information itself was delivered. Previous research has shown that pupi dilation highly correlates with stimulus uncertainty (Preuschoff, 2011; Joshi & Gold, 2020; Lavin et al., 2014), which refers to the unpredictability or ambiguity surrounding a stimulus outcome, and with the expected information gain of a stimulus in a task (Zénon, 2019). ---------- Task Design and Pupil Dilation Signal ------------------------------------- ![Task Design and Pupil Dilation Signal][1] [1]: https://mfr.osf.io/export?url=https://osf.io/download/rfszw/?direct=%26mode=render&format=2400x2400.jpeg