Biology subjects

Spaniol, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Spaniol, J..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

How social value guides curiosity, information search, and memory in younger and older adults

Epistemic curiosity, or the desire for new knowledge, benefits emotional, physical, and cognitive health across the lifespan. Initially believed to be solely intrinsically motivated, recent work has found that extrinsic motivators can also drive epistemic curiosity. One example of the latter is the perceived social value of information, such as popularity metrics on social media platforms (e.g., upvotes on Reddit.com). However, it remains unclear whether the influence of social value cues extends to curiosity-related behaviors, such as information search and memory, and whether these effects vary with age. The current study was designed to fill these knowledge gaps. In two experiments, younger and older adults (total N = 367) rated their curiosity for user-generated trivia questions that varied in social value (high or low upvote counts on Reddit.com). Upvote counts were either visible (upvote visible condition) or not visible (upvote invisible condition). In Experiment 1, participants had the opportunity to reveal the answer to each trivia question, a measure of information seeking. Although social value increased curiosity, it did not influence information seeking. In Experiment 2, answer reveal was mandatory, and participants received a surprise recall test for the answers. Social value again increased curiosity, particularly for younger adults, but had no influence on memory. Overall, these findings replicate social-value effects on curiosity in younger and older adults, but they provide no evidence that social value motivates information search or episodic memory. These findings highlight the limits of extrinsic influences on epistemic behaviors across the adult lifespan.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2022

Fleeting Effects of Incentives: Adult Age Differences in ERP Measures of Motivated Attention

Reward-based motivation is associated with transient and sustained dopaminergic activity and with modulatory effects on attention and cognitive control. Age-related changes in the dopamine system are well documented, but little is known about age differences in the temporal dynamics of motivational influences on cognitive functions. The current study examined the effects of financial incentives on visual attention using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants (26 younger, aged 18-33; 24 older, aged 65-95) 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 incentive-cue P2 and CNV, alerting-cue N1, target N1, and target P3. Transient effects of incentives were assessed by comparing ERP amplitudes across incentive and non-incentive trials from mixed-incentive blocks. Younger adults showed transient effects of incentives on all components, whereas older adults showed effects for incentive-cue P2 and alerting-cue N1 only. 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. Both age groups showed sustained effects of incentives on cue-locked ERPs, but only younger adults showed sustained effects on target-locked ERPs. Reaction-time patterns mirrored the ERP findings, in that younger adults showed greater incentive-based modulation than older adults. Overall, these findings suggest that both transient and sustained effects of incentives on visual attention are more fleeting for older than younger adults, consistent with widespread alterations in dopaminergic neuromodulation in aging.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

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 lifespan. 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 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.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2019

Fronto-striatal 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 current 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 and 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 evidence of an age-related shift in the neural underpinnings of reward-motivated encoding.

neuroscience↗