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. 2022 Jun 28;12(7):846.
doi: 10.3390/brainsci12070846.

Curiosity Killed the Cat but Not Memory: Enhanced Performance in High-Curiosity States

Caterina Padulo  1 , Erika Marascia  1 , Nadia Conte  1 , Noemi Passarello  2 , Laura Mandolesi  2 , Beth Fairfield  2
Affiliations

Curiosity Killed the Cat but Not Memory: Enhanced Performance in High-Curiosity States

Caterina Padulo et al. Brain Sci. .

Abstract

Curiosity benefits memory for target information and may also benefit memory for incidental information presented during curiosity states. However, it is not known whether incidental curiosity-enhanced memory depends on or is affected by the valence of the incidental information during curiosity states. Here, older and younger participants incidentally encoded unrelated face images (positive, negative, and neutral) while they anticipated answers to trivia questions. We found memory enhancements for answers to trivia questions and unrelated faces presented during high-curiosity compared with low-curiosity states in both younger and older adults. Interestingly, face valence did not modify memory for unrelated faces. This suggests processes associated with the elicitation of curiosity enhance memory for incidental information instead of valence.

Keywords: aging; emotion; memory; trivia.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic illustration of the experimental procedure.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Recall of trivia answers: memory performance for levels of curiosity in young and older adults.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Accuracy for memory of faces: memory performance for levels of curiosity in young and older adults.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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