Consequences of curiosity for recognition memory in younger and older adults.

Older adults are more prone to false recognition than younger adults, particularly when new information is semantically related to old information. Curiosity, which guides information-seeking behavior and has beneficial effects on memory across the life span, may offer protection against false recognition, but this hypothesis has not been tested experimentally to date. The current study investigated the effect of curiosity on correct and false recognition in younger and older adults (total N = 102) using a trivia paradigm. On Day 1 of the study, participants encoded trivia questions and answers while rating their curiosity levels. On Day 2, participants completed a surprise old/new recognition test in which they saw the same trivia questions. Half of the questions were paired with old (correct) answers, and half were paired with new (incorrect) answers. New answers were either semantically related or unrelated to correct answers. For both age groups, curiosity at encoding was positively associated with correct recognition. For older adults, semantically related lures produced more false recognition than unrelated lures. However, this effect was mitigated by curiosity, such that older adults were less likely to endorse semantically related lures for high- versus low-curiosity questions. Overall, these results extend prior findings of curiosity-related memory benefits to the domain of recognition memory, and they provide novel evidence that curiosity may protect against false memory formation in older adults.

Exploring neurophysiological correlates of visually induced motion sickness using electroencephalography (EEG).

Visually induced motion sickness (VIMS) is a common phenomenon when using visual devices such as smartphones and virtual reality applications, with symptoms including nausea, fatigue, and headache. To date, the neuro-cognitive processes underlying VIMS are not fully understood. Previous studies using electroencephalography (EEG) delivered mixed findings, with some reporting an increase in delta and theta power, and others reporting increases in alpha and beta frequencies. The goal of the study was to gain further insight into EEG correlates for VIMS. Participants viewed a VIMS-inducing visual stimulus, composed of moving black-and-white vertical bars presented on an array of three adjacent monitors. The EEG was recorded during visual stimulation and VIMS ratings were recorded after each trial using the Fast Motion Sickness Scale. Time-frequency analyses were conducted comparing neural activity of participants reporting minimal VIMS (n = 21) and mild-moderate VIMS (n = 12). Results suggested a potential increase in delta power in the centro-parietal regions (CP2) and a decrease in alpha power in the central regions (Cz) for participants experiencing mild-moderate VIMS compared to those with minimal VIMS. Event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs) suggested that group differences in EEG activity developed with increasing duration of a trial. These results support the hypothesis that the EEG might be sensitive to differences in information processing in VIMS and minimal VIMS contexts, and indicate that it may be possible to identify neurophysiological correlate of VIMS. Differences in EEG activity related to VIMS may reflect differential processing of conflicting visual and vestibular sensory information.

Age-Related Differences in Decision-Making: Evidence Accumulation is More Gradual in Older Age.

Older adults tend to exhibit longer response times than younger adults in choice tasks across cognitive domains, such as perception, attention, and memory. The diffusion model has emerged as a standard model for analyzing age differences in choice behavior. Applications of the diffusion model to choice data from younger and older adults indicate that age-related slowing is driven by a more cautious response style and slower non-decisional processes, rather than by age differences in the rate of information accumulation. The Lévy flight model, a new evidence accumulation model that extends the diffusion model, was recently developed to account for differences in response times for correct and error responses. In the Lévy flight model, larger jumps in evidence accumulation can be accommodated compared to the diffusion model. It is currently unknown whether younger and older adults differ with respect to the jumpiness of evidence accumulation. In the current study, younger and older adults (N = 40 per age group) completed a letter-number-discrimination task. Results indicate that older adults show a more gradual (less "jumpy") pattern of evidence accumulation compared to younger adults. Implications for research on cognitive aging are discussed.

Age Differences in Motivated Cognition: A Meta-Analysis.

OBJECTIVES: The goal of this preregistered study was to synthesize empirical findings on age differences in motivated cognition using a meta-analytic approach, with a focus on the domains of cognitive control and episodic memory. METHODS: A systematic search of articles published before July 2022 yielded 27 studies of cognitive control (N = 1,908) and 73 studies of memory (N = 5,837). Studies had to include healthy younger and older adults, a within-subjects or between-subjects comparison of motivation (high vs low), and a measure of cognitive control or memory. The Age × Motivation effect size was meta-analyzed using random-effects models, and moderators were examined using meta-regressions and subgroup analyses. RESULTS: Overall, the Age × Motivation interaction was not significant in either cognitive domain, but the effect sizes in both domains were significantly heterogeneous, indicating a possible role of moderating factors in accounting for effect size differences. Moderator analyses revealed significant moderation by incentive type for episodic memory, but not for cognitive control. Older adults' memory was more sensitive to socioemotional rewards, whereas younger adults' memory was more sensitive to financial gains. DISCUSSION: Findings are discussed with reference to the dopamine hypothesis of cognitive aging and to life-span theories of motivational orientation. None of these theories is fully supported by the meta-analysis findings, highlighting the need for an integration of neurobiological, cognitive process, and life-span-motivational perspectives.

Adult Age Differences in the Temporal Dynamics of Motivated Attention.

Reward-based motivation modulates attention and cognitive control across the life span, but little is known about age differences in the temporal dynamics of motivated attention. The current study examined the effects of financial incentives on visual attention using ERPs. Participants (26 younger, aged 18-33 years; 24 older, aged 65-95 years) completed an incentivized flanker task in which trial-level incentive cues signaled the availability of performance-contingent reward, and subsequent alerting cues signaled the onset of the flanker target. ERP components of interest included cue-related components (incentive-cue P2 and contingent negative variation, and alerting-cue N1) as well as target-related components (target N1 and P3). Transient effects of incentives were assessed by comparing ERP amplitudes across incentive and non-incentive trials from mixed-incentive blocks. Sustained effects of incentives were assessed by comparing ERP amplitudes across non-incentive trials from mixed-incentive blocks and non-incentive trials from pure non-incentive blocks. Younger adults showed transient effects of incentives on all components, whereas older adults showed these effects for incentive-cue P2 and alerting-cue N1 only. Both age groups showed sustained effects of incentives on cue-locked ERPs, but only younger adults showed sustained effects on target-locked ERPs. RT patterns mirrored the ERP findings, in that younger adults showed greater incentive-based modulation than older adults, but at a greater cost to accuracy. Overall, these findings reveal widespread age differences in the dynamics of incentive-motivated attention and cognitive control, particularly at longer timescales.

Enhanced vection in older adults: Evidence for age-related effects in multisensory vection experiences.

The illusion of self-motion (vection) is a multisensory phenomenon elicited by visual, auditory, tactile, or other sensory cues. Aging is often associated with changes in sensory acuity, visual motion perception, and multisensory integration, processes which may influence vection perception. However, age-related differences in vection have received little study to date. Thus, the objective of the present study was to investigate age-related differences in vection during multisensory stimulation. Nineteen younger adults and 19 older adults were exposed to rotating visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli (separately or in combination) at a speed of 45°/s inside a VR laboratory inducing circular vection. The size of the field-of-view (FOV) was large (240°), medium (75°), small (30°), or contained no visuals. Vection intensity and duration were reported verbally after each trial. Overall, older adults experienced significantly stronger and longer vection compared to younger adults. Additionally, there were main effects of FOV and sensory cues, such that larger FOVs and the presence of auditory and tactile stimulation increased vection ratings for both age groups. These findings support the idea that vection is a multisensory experience that can be elicited by visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli and demonstrates these effects for the first time in older adults.

The interaction of curiosity and reward on long-term memory in younger and older adults.

Long-term memory is sensitive to both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, but little is known about the relative influence of these two sources of motivation on memory performance across the adult life span. The study examined the effects of extrinsic motivation, manipulated via monetary reward, and curiosity, a form of intrinsic motivation, on long-term memory in healthy younger and older adults. During the incidental encoding phase on Day 1, 60 younger and 53 older participants viewed high- and low-curiosity trivia items as well as unrelated face stimuli. Half of the participants in each age group received financial rewards for correctly guessing trivia answers. On Day 2, participants completed a trivia recall test and an old-new recognition test for the face stimuli. Both curiosity and reward were associated with enhanced trivia recall, but the effects were interactive, such that only low-curiosity items benefitted from monetary reward. Neither curiosity nor reward affected face recognition performance in either age group. These findings indicate that the individual and joint effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on long-term memory are relatively preserved in healthy aging, a finding that highlights the viability of motivational strategies for memory enhancement into old age. Identifying conditions under which memory for unrelated information benefits from motivational spillover effects in younger and older adults is a priority for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Multisensory Effects on Illusory Self-Motion (Vection): the Role of Visual, Auditory, and Tactile Cues.

A critical component to many immersive experiences in virtual reality (VR) is vection, defined as the illusion of self-motion. Traditionally, vection has been described as a visual phenomenon, but more recent research suggests that vection can be influenced by a variety of senses. The goal of the present study was to investigate the role of multisensory cues on vection by manipulating the availability of visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli in a VR setting. To achieve this, 24 adults (Mage = 25.04) were presented with a rotating stimulus aimed to induce circular vection. All participants completed trials that included a single sensory cue, a combination of two cues, or all three cues presented together. The size of the field of view (FOV) was manipulated across four levels (no-visuals, small, medium, full). Participants rated vection intensity and duration verbally after each trial. Results showed that all three sensory cues induced vection when presented in isolation, with visual cues eliciting the highest intensity and longest duration. The presence of auditory and tactile cues further increased vection intensity and duration compared to conditions where these cues were not presented. These findings support the idea that vection can be induced via multiple types of sensory inputs and can be intensified when multiple sensory inputs are combined.

Associations between phasic arousal and decisions under risk in younger and older adults.

Higher arousal is linked to simple decision strategies and an increased preference for immediate rewards in younger adults, but little is known about the influence of arousal on decision making in older adults. In light of age-related locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system declines, we predicted a reduced association between arousal and decision behavior in older adults. Younger and older participants made a series of choices between smaller, higher-probability and larger, lower-probability financial gains. Each choice was preceded by the presentation of a high-arousal or low-arousal sound. Pupil dilation was continuously recorded as an index of task-evoked arousal. Both age groups showed significant modulation of pupil dilation as a function of arousal condition. Higher-arousal sounds were associated with shorter response times, particularly in younger adults. Furthermore, higher-arousal sounds were associated with greater risk aversion in younger adults and greater risk seeking in older adults, in line with an arousal-related amplification of baseline preferences in both age groups. Jointly, these findings help inform current theories of the effects of arousal on information processing in younger and older adults.

Altruism in Parkinson's disease.

Objective: Reward-based decision-making is a growing area of research in Parkinson's disease (PD), a disorder characterized by alterations in dopamine and cortico-striatal circuits. While reward is typically operationalized as a gain, altruistic decisions also engage the reward system in fMRI studies. Although altruism comes at a cost, individuals may be motivated by the social reward associated with benefitting another. At present, it is unclear how PD affects altruism because both increased egoistic tendencies and increased generosity have been documented. Method: To address this, 32 individuals with PD and 32 age-matched healthy controls completed two tasks of implicit and explicit altruism. First, in an intertemporal choice task, participants chose between a smaller immediate or larger later outcome. Outcome types included gains, losses, and donations, and an implicit altruism measure was derived. Second, participants completed two versions of the dictator game, which assesses nonreciprocal giving and yields an explicit measure of altruism. Results: Patients and controls showed similar altruism in the intertemporal choice task and in a dictator game for a charity, but patients were more generous than controls in the dictator game in which the recipient was a stranger. Among patients, altruism measures were moderated by laterality of hemispheric burden and medication type. Conclusions: This study was the first to examine altruistic decision-making in PD patients using both implicit and explicit measures. PD patients were neither overly generous nor egoistic in their decisions, although some disease and treatment characteristics may have a modest association with altruism in PD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Aging and altruism: A meta-analysis.

Life span theories postulate that altruistic tendencies increase in adult development, but the mechanisms and moderators of age-related differences in altruism are poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear to what extent age differences in altruism reflect age differences in altruistic motivation, in resources such as education and income, or in socially desirable responding. This meta-analysis combined 16 studies assessing altruism in younger and older adults (N = 1,581). As expected, results revealed an age-related difference in altruism (Mg = 0.61, p < .001), with older adults showing greater altruism than younger adults. Demographic moderators (income, education, sex distribution) did not significantly moderate this effect, nor did aspects of the study methodology that may drive socially desirable responding. However, the age effect was moderated by the average age of the older sample, such that studies with young-old samples showed a larger age effect than studies with old-old samples. These findings are consistent with the theoretical prediction of age-related increases in altruistic motivation, but they also suggest a role for resources (e.g., physical, cognitive, social) that may decline in advanced old age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Reward anticipation selectively boosts encoding of gist for visual objects.

Reward anticipation at encoding enhances later recognition, but it is unknown to what extent different levels of processing at encoding (gist vs. detail) can benefit from reward-related memory enhancement. In the current study, participants (N = 50) performed an incidental encoding task in which they made gist-related or detail-related judgments about pairs of visual objects while in anticipation of high or low reward. Results of a subsequent old/new recognition test revealed a reward-related memory benefit that was specific to objects from pairs encoded in the attention-to-gist condition. These findings are consistent with the theory of long-axis specialization along the human hippocampus, which localizes gist-based memory processes to the anterior hippocampus, a region highly interconnected with the dopaminergic reward network.

The effect of motivational incentives on face-name hyper-binding in older adults.

Hyper-binding refers to the spontaneous formation of target-distractor associations in older adults, with consequences for subsequent memory. While hyper-binding reflects a loss of attentional and mnemonic selectivity in aging, a growing literature suggests that motivational states modulate cognitive performance in both younger and older adults. In the current study, healthy younger and older adults (N = 48 in both age groups) completed a face-name hyper-binding task with or without motivational incentives during incidental encoding. Results revealed a motivation-related decrease in hyper-binding in older adults, leading to a paradoxical motivation-related memory decrement in this age group. These findings suggest that reward motivation can counteract age-related deficits in inhibition and attentional selectivity, without necessarily boosting memory performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The Effect of Information Formats and Incidental Affect on Prior and Posterior Probability Judgments.

Background. Interpreting medical test results involves judging probabilities, including making Bayesian inferences such as judging the positive and negative predictive values. Although prior work has shown that experience formats (e.g., slide shows of representative patient cases) produce more accurate Bayesian inferences than description formats (e.g., verbal statistical summaries), there are disadvantages of using the experience format for real-world medical decision making that may be solved by presenting relevant information in a 2 × 2 table format. Furthermore, medical decisions are often made in stressful contexts, yet little is known about the influence of acute stress on the accuracy of Bayesian inferences. This study aimed to a) replicate the description-experience format effect on probabilistic judgments; b) examine judgment accuracy across description, experience, and a new 2 × 2 table format; and c) assess the effect of acute stress on probability judgments. Method. The study employed a 2 (stress condition) × 3 (format) factorial between-subjects design. Participants (N = 165) completed a Bayesian inference task in which information about a medical screening test was presented in 1 of 3 formats (description, experience, 2 × 2 table), following a laboratory stress induction or a no-stress control condition. Results. Overall, the 2 × 2 table format produced the most accurate probability judgments, including Bayesian inferences, compared with the description and experience formats. Stress had no effect on judgment accuracy. Discussion. Given its accuracy and practicality, a 2 × 2 table may be better suited than description or experience formats for communicating probabilistic information in medical contexts.

Frontostriatal functional connectivity supports reward-enhanced memory in older adults.

Both younger and older adults prioritize reward-associated stimuli in memory, but there has been little research on possible age differences in the neural mechanisms mediating this effect. In the present study, we examine neural activation and functional connectivity in healthy younger and older adults to test the hypothesis that older adults would engage prefrontal regions to a greater extent in the service of reward-enhanced memory. While undergoing MRI, target stimuli were presented after high- or low-reward cues. The cues indicated the reward value for successfully recognizing the stimulus on a memory test 24 hours later. We replicated prior findings that both older and younger adults had better memory for high- compared to low-reward stimuli. Critically, in older but not younger adults, this enhanced subsequent memory for high-reward items was supported by greater connectivity between the caudate and bilateral inferior frontal gyrus. The findings add to the growing literature on motivation-cognition interactions in healthy aging and provide novel findings of the neural underpinnings of reward-motivated encoding.

Age differences in emotion perception in a multiple target setting: An eye-tracking study.

Research focusing on the association between age and emotion perception has revealed inconsistent findings, with some support for an age-related positivity effect, as predicted by socioemotional selectivity theory. We used the mood-of-the-crowd (MoC) task to investigate whether older adults judge a crowd consisting of happy and angry expressions to be dominated by happy faces more frequently. The task was to decide whether an array of faces included more angry or more happy faces. Accuracy, response times, and gaze movements were analyzed to test the hypothesis, derived from socioemotional selectivity theory, that age would be associated with a bias toward judging crowds as happy, and with longer and more numerous fixations on happy expressions. Seventy-six participants took part in the study representing 3 different age groups (young, middle-aged, old). Contrary to the hypothesis, older participants more often judged the emotional crowd to be angry compared with younger participants. Furthermore, whereas fixations were longer for happy faces than for angry faces in younger adults, this difference was not present in older adults. A decline in inhibitory processing in older adults as well as higher cognitive demands of the task are discussed as possible explanations for these findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive and motivational selectivity in healthy aging.

Normal aging is associated with a reduction in the selectivity of cognitive processes such as attention and memory. This loss of selectivity is attributed to diminished inhibition and cognitive control mechanisms in older adults, which render them more susceptible to distraction and more likely to attend to and encode irrelevant information. However, motivational selectivity appears largely preserved in aging. For example, older adults selectively avoid high-demand tasks, exhibit a positivity bias in attention and memory, and show better memory for high-value compared to low-value information. The aim of this review is to integrate these seemingly paradoxical findings of reduced and preserved selectivity in aging, discuss potential neural mechanisms, and propose questions for future research. This article is categorized under: Neuroscience > Cognition Psychology > Development and Aging.

Age differences in cue utilization during prospective and retrospective memory monitoring.

Memory monitoring is an inferential process that we use to evaluate and make judgments about the contents of our memory. Prior work has shown age-related similarity in prospective monitoring of ongoing memory processes, but age-related deficits when retrospectively monitoring the source of memories. In the current study, we examined how extrinsic and intrinsic cues influence age differences in these 2 forms of memory monitoring. Two experiments were conducted in which young and older adults made prospective judgments of learning (JOLs) to monitor ongoing memory processes as well as retrospective source judgments during retrieval. The emotional valence of words (positive, negative, and neutral) served as an intrinsic cue across experiments. Extrinsic importance cues were manipulated via item-based directed forgetting cues (to-be-remembered versus to-be-forgotten cues) in Experiment 1 and value-based cues (+10 versus -10 cues) in Experiment 2. Results provide novel evidence for age-related similarity in use of extrinsic and intrinsic cues during prospective memory monitoring via JOLs. By contrast, during retrospective source monitoring, older but not young adults showed a bias to attribute positive items to extrinsic cues with higher importance, even when those attributions were inaccurate. These findings suggest that the age-related tendency to favor positive information may lead to systematic errors in retrospective monitoring, which has implications for the credibility of older adults' source judgments when monitoring memory for emotional events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Age differences in the neural response to negative feedback.

Affective processing is one domain that remains relatively intact in healthy aging. Investigations into the neural responses associated with reward anticipation have revealed that older and younger adults recruit the same midbrain reward regions, but other evidence suggests this recruitment may differ depending on the valence (gain, loss) of the incentive cue. The goal of the current study was to examine functional covariance during gain and loss feedback in younger and healthy older adults. A group of 15 older adults (mean age = 68.5) and 16 younger adults (mean age = 25.4) completed a revised Monetary Incentive Delay task (rMID; Knutson, Westdorp, Kaiser, & Hommer, 2000) while in the fMRI scanner. The rMID is a reaction time task where successful performance, either gaining a reward or avoiding a loss, is defined by hitting a button during the brief presentation of a visual target. Participants receive gain and loss anticipation cues before each trial and feedback after each trial with four possible outcomes: +$5.00, +0.00, -$5.00, and -$0.00. Using seed-voxel partial least squares analyses, with seed voxels in the caudate and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, whole-brain functional covariance revealed that younger and older adults engage the same network of regions to support general feedback processing. However, older adults engaged two additional networks to support processing of negative feedback, gain_miss (+0), loss_miss (-$5), and loss_hit (-0), specifically. These findings are in line with theories of a positivity effect in aging and may have implications for reward-stimulus learning and decision making following performance-contingent negative feedback.

Acute stress and altruism in younger and older adults.

Recent studies of aging and decision making suggests that altruism increases with age. It is unclear, however, whether this pattern holds when choices are made under stress, as is often the case in real-world scenarios. The current study used an intertemporal choice task in which younger and older adults received a financial endowment before making a series of consequential intertemporal decisions involving gains, losses and charitable donations. Preceding the choice task, participants were exposed to a laboratory stressor. Physiological stress reactivity was a predictor of altruistic decision making in younger adults, such that individuals with higher stress reactivity made more generous choices. Older adults showed higher altruism than younger adults overall, with altruism unrelated to stress reactivity in older adults. These findings are consistent with an age-related change in the mechanisms underlying altruistic behavior.