Individual Differences in Infants’ Curiosity Are Linked to Cognitive Capacity in Early Childhood

Journal article

Research has shown that infants are curious and actively seek situations from which they can learn. For instance, a recent eye‐tracking study demonstrates that babies tend to allocate their attention to stimuli that offer opportunities for learning new information. Interestingly, however, the degree to which attention is guided by information gain varies among individual infants. This longitudinal study provides the first empirical evidence suggesting that these early individual differences in infants’ sensitivity to information gain are linked to later cognitive development. Specifically, we found that the extent to which infants’ attention was guided by information gain at 8 months was related to their IQ scores at 3.5 years of age (n = 60, 50% female): especially children who displayed the greatest curiosity as infants tended to have a more favourable cognitive development. These findings demonstrate the lasting consequences of early existing differences in curiosity‐driven exploration for later childhood cognitive development. Summary: We link individual differences in curiosity, measured as infants’ sensitivity to information gain, to later cognitive outcomes. Infants’ sensitivity to information gain was related to their IQ scores 3 years later. Curiosity may act as a boost, improving cognitive functioning for those children that were especially curious during infancy.

Authors: de Boer, ER; Poli, F; Meyer, M; Mars, RB; Hunnius, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Developmental Science
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 1
• Article number: e70090
• Publication date: 2025-11-07
• Acceptance date: 2025-10-23
• DOI: 10.1111/desc.70090
• EISSN: 1467-7687
• ISSN: 1363755X, 1363-755X
• Language: English
• Keywords: childhood intelligence; infant curiosity; cognitive development; longitudinal; information gain; IQ