A small Dutch study has found that a curious personality tends to align with higher indicators of cognitive reserve—specifically education and mentally stimulating leisure activities—though it did not observe a link with performance on cognitive tests.
Cognitive reserve describes the brain’s ability to sustain functioning amid ageing, brain injury or disease-related changes. It is thought to accumulate gradually through experiences that repeatedly engage the brain, such as education, demanding work, reading, learning new skills and other mentally stimulating activities. In later life, greater cognitive reserve may delay or lessen cognitive effects of brain changes, even if those changes still occur.
Researchers have suggested that curiosity could be particularly important for building cognitive reserve. Curious individuals seek new information, explore unfamiliar experiences and continue learning throughout adulthood. Activities encouraged by curiosity—reading, language learning and exploring new ideas—may provide sustained cognitive stimulation over many years. The study also notes ties between openness to experience and slower cognitive decline, a trait that overlaps with curiosity.
The study, led by Carolien Torenvliet with colleagues at Radboud University’s Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, investigated whether a curious personality—capturing both openness to experience and interest-based curiosity—relates to cognitive reserve and to cognitive abilities, and whether reserve underpins any such relationship.
Participants were 106 adults recruited mainly from around Nijmegen in the Netherlands. They ranged in age from 40 to 85 years, with an average age just over 62, and 57% were women. Exclusion criteria ruled out current or past psychiatric or neurological disorders. The group possessed an average estimated IQ higher than the population average, at about 118.
Participants completed three questionnaires assessing curious personality: two measuring interest-based curiosity and one measuring openness to experience. They also completed the Dutch version of the Cognitive Reserve Index questionnaire, which estimates cognitive reserve from education, the complexity of work and leisure activities. Finally, they took three brief neuropsychological tests measuring memory, executive function and processing speed.
The results showed that more curious individuals tended to score higher on indicators of cognitive reserve, specifically education and leisure activities, though not the complexity of their work. This association persisted after accounting for age. However, neither curiosity nor the cognitive reserve indicators were tied to performance on the cognitive tests.
“Although this study is limited by its cross-sectional design and relatively healthy sample, the results suggest that a curious personality may drive individual differences in cognitively stimulating experiences, but not cognitive abilities themselves,” the study authors concluded.
The research adds to the understanding of cognitive reserve, while emphasising that the design cannot establish causality. Curiosity may lead people to pursue more education and stimulating activities, but those experiences could also foster curiosity.
The paper, “Curious people, resilient minds? The role of a curious personality in cognitive reserve and cognitive abilities,” was authored by Carolien Torenvliet, Dirk Bertens, Joukje M. Oosterman and Iris Wiegand.
