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.