Why Do New Things Make Us Feel So Good?

We love new things. New sights, new sounds. New clothes, new books, new liquid refreshments.  Novelty is the key and novelty is probably what makes Facebook and texting, and travel, so appealing.

Neuroscientists have identified a “novelty center” in our brain, and they believe that activating this center not only makes us feel good (by releasing dopamine) but may enhance our ability to learn.

Wrote Belle Beth Cooper, in a piece for LifeHacker.com: “Researchers have long suspected that the human brain is particularly attracted to new information and that this might be important for learning.”

The formal name for the novelty center is the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SN/VTA), which is located in the midbrain and responds to entirely novel stimuli. Explained Cooper, in her lifehacker.com piece: “The SN/VTA only activated when [study participants were] shown absolutely novel stimuli – images that had never been seen before. Other related areas of the brain still reacted to the images, but the reactions decreased slightly with each showing as they became more familiar.”

The study at issue was the work of professors Emrah Duzel and Nico Bunzeck of University College London (UCL) and it reminded me of a study years back in which rats, searching for food, chose a novel route instead of a more expedient one. In other words, the rats were willing to wait for their reward (food) for a chance to explore.  So curiosity and novelty, it seems, is built into the DNA of the entire animal kingdom (a point reinforced nightly when I take our dogs for a walk around Daniel Island).

Said Dr. Duzel, in a press release accompanying his study:  “When we see something new, we see it has a potential for rewarding us in some way. This potential that lies in new things motivates us to explore our environment for rewards. The brain learns that the stimulus, once familiar, has no reward associated with it and so it loses its potential. For this reason, only completely new objects activate the midbrain area and increase our levels of dopamine.”

Duzel and Bunzeck’s findings may eventually find their way to the classroom.  Said Dr. Duzel: “We hope that these findings will have an impact on behavioural treatments for patients with poor memory. Current practice by behavioural psychologists aims to improve memory through repeatedly exposing a person to information – just as we do when we revise for an exam. This study shows that [learning] is more effective if you mix new facts in with the old. You actually learn better, even though your brain is also tied up with new information.”