Novelty speeds up learning thanks to dopamine activation

Brain scientists have identified a causal mechanism of how novel stimuli promote learning. Novelty directly activates the dopamine system, which is responsible for associative learning. The findings have implications for improving learning strategies and for the design of machine learning algorithms.

from Health & Medicine News -- ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205132255.htm