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Ding Z, Li W, Chen C, Yang Z, Wang S, Xu J, Liu X, Zhang M. The effect of choice on memory across development. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 246:105982. [PMID: 38879930 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105982] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2023] [Revised: 05/02/2024] [Accepted: 05/02/2024] [Indexed: 06/18/2024]
Abstract
Numerous studies have demonstrated the role of making choices as an internal motivator to improve performance, and recent studies in the domain of memory have focused on adults. To chart the developmental trend of the choice effect on memory, we conducted a series of seven experiments involving children, adolescents, and young adults. Participants (N = 512) aged 5 to 26 years performed a choice encoding task that manipulated the opportunities to choose and then took a memory test. Using different types of experimental materials and corroborated by a mini meta-analysis, we found that the choice effect on memory was significant in childhood and early adolescence but not significant in late adolescence and early adulthood. The developmental changes were statistically significant, particularly evident during the transition from early to late adolescence. These findings suggest that the internal value of choice decreases across development and contributes to our understanding of developmental differences in the role of choice in memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhuolei Ding
- Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Wenqing Li
- Facuty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Chuansheng Chen
- School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92617, USA
| | - Zhong Yang
- Institute of Brain Science and Department of Physiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou 310030, China
| | - Songxue Wang
- Department of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Social and Public Management, Guangdong Baiyun University, Guangdong 510450, China
| | - Juanjuan Xu
- Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Xun Liu
- Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Mingxia Zhang
- Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
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Wang W, Yan X, He X, Qian J. Evidence for the Beneficial Effect of Reward on Working Memory: A Meta-Analytic Study. J Intell 2024; 12:88. [PMID: 39330467 PMCID: PMC11433210 DOI: 10.3390/jintelligence12090088] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2024] [Revised: 09/01/2024] [Accepted: 09/05/2024] [Indexed: 09/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Rewards act as external motivators and can improve performance in various cognitive tasks. However, previous research demonstrated mixed findings regarding the effect of reward on working memory (WM) performance, and the question of whether reward enhances WM performance is arguable. It remains unclear how the effect of reward on WM can be influenced by various factors, such as types of reward and experimental paradigms. In this meta-analytic study, we systematically investigated the effect of reward on WM by analyzing data from 51 eligible studies involving a total of 1767 participants. Our results showed that reward robustly enhanced WM performance, with non-monetary rewards inducing more benefits than monetary rewards. This may be because, while both types of reward could induce extrinsic motivation, non-monetary rewards enhanced intrinsic motivation while monetary rewards reduced it. Notably, all three reward methods-reward binding, reward expectation, and subliminal reward-effectively improved WM performance, with the reward binding paradigm exhibiting the greatest effects. This finding suggests that the reward effect can be attributed to both increasing the total amount of WM resources and improving the flexibility of resource reallocation. Moreover, the type of WM, the experimental paradigms, and the outcome measures are three moderators that should be jointly considered when assessing the reward effects on WM. Overall, this meta-analytic study provides solid evidence that reward improves WM performance and reveals possible mechanisms underlying these improvements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Weiyu Wang
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, #132 Waihuan Dong Road, Panyu District, Guangzhou 510006, China
| | - Xin Yan
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, #132 Waihuan Dong Road, Panyu District, Guangzhou 510006, China
| | - Xinyu He
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, #132 Waihuan Dong Road, Panyu District, Guangzhou 510006, China
| | - Jiehui Qian
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, #132 Waihuan Dong Road, Panyu District, Guangzhou 510006, China
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Swirsky LT, Spaniol J. Consequences of curiosity for recognition memory in younger and older adults. Psychon Bull Rev 2024; 31:1527-1535. [PMID: 38097888 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02414-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/17/2023] [Indexed: 08/29/2024]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liyana T Swirsky
- Department of Psychology, Toronto Metropolitan University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada.
| | - Julia Spaniol
- Department of Psychology, Toronto Metropolitan University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada
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Sukumaran P, Kazanina N, Houghton C. Reward conditioning may not have an effect on category-specific memory. Sci Rep 2023; 13:22297. [PMID: 38102205 PMCID: PMC10724210 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-48874-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2023] [Accepted: 11/30/2023] [Indexed: 12/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Behavioural tagging facilitates the temporary storage of seemingly insignificant episodic events, which may later become salient and enhanced in memory. Human behavioural studies have demonstrated selective memory enhancement for neutral stimuli from one category when this category is subsequently paired with reward. Although this phenomenon has implications for the role of reward conditioning on emotional and adaptive memory, its generalisability is underexplored. We conducted four experiments to investigate whether pairing items from a semantic category, animals or objects, with high or low rewards resulted in preferential memory for the high-reward category. Three of these experiments also aimed to replicate the category-specific retrospective enhancement effect reported by Patil et al. and two explored the corresponding prospective memory effect. None of our experiments showed consistent evidence for an effect of reward on category-specific memory enhancement, despite employing the same reward paradigm and incidental encoding protocol as in the original study. Consequently, we found no evidence for category-specific retrospective or prospective enhancement effects. Our experiments were conducted online which is an equally relevant method for assessing behavioural phenomenon as the in-person studies conducted by Patil et al. Overall, our results question the generalisability of previously reported category-specific memory enhancement effects due to reward.
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Affiliation(s)
- Priyanka Sukumaran
- Faculty of Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1UB, UK.
- School of Psychological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TU, UK.
| | - Nina Kazanina
- School of Psychological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TU, UK
- International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
| | - Conor Houghton
- Faculty of Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1UB, UK
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Xue J, Jiang T, Chen C, Murty VP, Li Y, Ding Z, Zhang M. The interactive effect of external rewards and self-determined choice on memory. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2023; 87:2101-2110. [PMID: 36869894 PMCID: PMC9984743 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-023-01807-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2022] [Accepted: 02/10/2023] [Indexed: 03/05/2023]
Abstract
Both external motivational incentives (e.g., monetary reward) and internal motivational incentives (e.g., self-determined choice) have been found to promote memory, but much less is known about how these two types of incentives interact with each other to affect memory. The current study (N = 108) examined how performance-dependent monetary rewards affected the role of self-determined choice in memory performance, also known as the choice effect. Using a modified and better controlled version of the choice paradigm and manipulating levels of reward, we demonstrated an interactive effect between monetary reward and self-determined choice on 1-day delayed memory performance. Specifically, the choice effect on memory decreased when we introduced the performance-dependent external rewards. These results are discussed in terms of understanding how external and internal motivators interact to impact learning and memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jingming Xue
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, 100101, People's Republic of China
- Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, People's Republic of China
| | - Ting Jiang
- Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, People's Republic of China
| | - Chuansheng Chen
- Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA
| | - Vishnu P Murty
- Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA
| | - Yuxin Li
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, 100101, People's Republic of China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People's Republic of China
| | - Zhuolei Ding
- Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, People's Republic of China
| | - Mingxia Zhang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, 100101, People's Republic of China.
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People's Republic of China.
- Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Rd., Beijing, 100101, People's Republic of China.
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