The RTG 2906 „Curiosity“ invites to a Guest Talk: “ What sparks curiosity? Tracing its evolutionary roots in humans and non-human primates „. The talk is delivered by Sae In Lee from the University of Zurich. Scheduled for December 1st, 2025, 2 pm in ZHG 005.
What is the lecture about?
Curiosity, the drive to seek new information, shapes how we explore, learn, and share knowledge with others. In this talk, Sae In Lee will present a collaborative research project comparing curiosity in chimpanzees and pre-verbal human children. She addresses two main questions. First, is curiosity always about novelty, or can familiar objects also spark curiosity? Second, how do social cues, such as another individual’s emotional expression of surprise or interest, shape curiosity? Using non-verbal behavioral paradigms designed for robust cross-species comparison, we investigate whether curiosity can be triggered socially even when the object itself remains hidden.
In addition to this comparative work, Sae In Lee will share findings from her doctoral research on social learning in wild Javan gibbons. These studies demonstrate how socioecological factors shape learning opportunities, for example when individuals become curious about food by observing others’ feeding behaviors or by relying on their own exploration. Together, these lines of research highlight curiosity as both an individual and social process, one that not only drives curiosity but may also have deep evolutionary roots in social learning and cultural transmission.
About the speaker
Sae In Lee is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, studying comparative cognition focusing on social cognition and prosocial behavior in humans and non-human primates. She completed her PhD in behavioral ecology at Ewha Womans University in South Korea, where she investigated social and ecological cognition in wild gibbons in Indonesia as well as social influences on stress and learning behavior in captive gibbons and baboons. Her current research focuses on curiosity, particularly on what drives it and how social cues shape it in both humans and non-human primates.
