Surprise and curiosity

The orienting response is essentially the “What is it?” reflex. Our brains are highly sensitive to novelty and irregularities in our surroundings. When something defies our expectations based on past experiences, it triggers neurological shifts – like dilated pupils and increased blood flow to the brain – that help us figure out what’s different.
This reflex does more than alert us to differences – it help encode these unexpected events into memory. But another feeling has this effect, too: curiosity.
However, our curiosity about the unfamiliar can be a double-edged sword. Too much uncertainty can breed anxiety and fear in some individuals. The hippocampus codes for mismatches between our present experiences and our bank of past memories. But when there is too little overlap, the world can feel threatening and filled with potential dangers rather than appealing knowledge gaps to resolve.
This means we face a choice in approaching novelty – will we turn inward and retreat from the unsettling feeling of the new and undiscovered? Or can we muster a sense of patient curiosity that helps us explore the frontiers of our understanding?