Abstract
Novelty is a potent driver of learning, but little is known about whether anticipation of novelty can enhance memory for incidental information. Here, participants incidentally encountered objects while they actively navigated toward novel or previously familiarized virtual rooms. Across immediate and delayed surprise memory tests, participants showed superior recollection for incidental objects encountered while anticipating novel as compared with familiarized rooms. Furthermore, memory for incidental objects correlated positively with between-participants average curiosity about novel rooms but negatively with within-participants trial-specific curiosity. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on how salient processes impact memory for incidental material.
Highlights
Novelty is a potent driver of learning, but little is known about whether anticipation of novelty can enhance memory for incidental information
Anticipation of extrinsic reward such as monetary gain improves memory of incentivized information (e.g., Adcock et al 2006; Wolosin et al 2012; Gruber et al 2013), and even of incidental, neutral information that is merely encountered in temporal proximity to the reward (Mather and Schoeke 2011; Stanek et al 2019), supported by the dopaminergic system and memory-related regions (Wittmann et al 2005; Adcock et al 2006; Wolosin et al 2012; Gruber et al 2016; Murty et al 2017)
These findings implicate that anticipation of novelty could induce a high motivational state and lead to enhanced memory for incidental information learned during such a state
Summary
Novelty is a potent driver of learning, but little is known about whether anticipation of novelty can enhance memory for incidental information.
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