According to a Rutgers University study, preschool children are sensitive about the gap between what they know and what they can learn.Research published in Psychological Science found that preschoolers are more likely than adults to seek out more information about a topic if they have just enough to be interested, but not so much as to become boring.Research shows that this optimal amount of knowledge motivates children to continue learning and creates uncertainty.Lead author Jenny Wang, an assistant professor at Rutgers in cognitive psychology, stated that there is an inexhaustible amount of information. "Yet, despite having learned so much in such an short time, young children seem happy and effective at learning. We wanted to find out what motivates their curiosity.The study examined how children's knowledge levels influence what information they find fascinating. These findings show that children are attracted not only to information because it is new.Wang says that children are naturally curious, but it is difficult to harness their natural curiosity.Wang stated that "Ultimately, findings such as these will help parents to better support their children when they actively explore the world and learn about it,"Wang and her coauthors conducted a series of experiments to determine how much preschool children aged 3 to 5 years old know about various "knowledge domains." This experiment assessed children's understanding and comprehension of a topic like contagion. It also asked them how their current knowledge levels predicted their interest in learning more, including whether they would get sick if they play with a friend who sneezes.Wang, director of the Rutgers Cognition and Learning Center, said, "Intuitively curiosity seems to belong the people who know most, like scientists and those who don't know as much, like babies." "But we were surprised to find that children in the middle showed more interest in learning about contagion than children who knew too much or too little."
