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On the value of information and other rewards

Nature Neuroscience volume 14, pages 1095–1097 (2011)Cite this article

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Knowledge is not just power. Even if advance information can not influence an upcoming event, people (and animals) prefer to know ahead of time what the outcome will be. According to the firing patterns of neurons in the lateral habenula, from the brain's perspective, knowledge is also water—or at least its equivalent in terms of reward.

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Figure 1: Anticipation and the value of information.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yael Niv and Stephanie Chan are at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the Psychology Department, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.,

    Yael Niv & Stephanie Chan

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  1. Yael Niv
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  2. Stephanie Chan
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Correspondence to Yael Niv.

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Niv, Y., Chan, S. On the value of information and other rewards. Nat Neurosci 14, 1095–1097 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2918

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