The Effects of Curiosity on Learning and Memory among Younger and Older Adults

好奇心是人类探索的核心。虽然好奇心在引导学习方面的重要性是直观的，但它在促进记忆方面所起的作用却很少有科学的认识。现有的许多研究都集中在好奇心如何增强儿童和非人类动物的探索能力，强调其作为提高认知能力的动机驱动的进化价值。然而，关于好奇心如何在老年人的学习中发挥作用的信息却很少。在我们的知识中，这一关键的差距指出了在整个生命周期中动机和认知之间相互作用的现有模型的局限性。在接下来的五年里，我将利用我在学习和记忆中与年龄相关的变化的研究经验来解决这一差距。通过利用最近关于基于好奇心的学习的神经生物学研究，我预测老年人的好奇心和记忆力之间的关系将会减弱。具体来说，我将研究好奇心的年龄差异，作为它是否有助于：(1)学习暂时令人困惑的信息（感性好奇心），或(2)学习你想知道的信息（认知好奇心）的函数。我还将探讨好奇心是否有助于减少记忆的年龄差异(3)。我将使用行为范式来诱导学习过程中的好奇心，并研究其与后来对图像、单词和事实的回忆的关系。******在进行这项研究的过程中，我将为好奇心的理论丰富和可用于客观评估它的方法的发展做出贡献。这项研究也将首次对正常衰老过程中的好奇心进行系统研究，鉴于最近的证据表明，基于好奇心的学习依赖于已知因衰老而受损的大脑区域，这是一项重要的工作。更广泛地说，这项工作将帮助我们理解一个我们认为理所当然的关键动机，因为它在日常生活中无处不在。拟议中的研究项目还将允许我启动一个主动记忆和衰老实验室，该实验室将吸引希望接受官方语言培训的新兴国内和国际科学家，重申加拿大作为创新认知研究场所的地位。***********

Curiosity is at the heart of human discovery. Although the importance of curiosity in guiding learning is intuitively understood, there is little scientific understanding of the role that it plays in promoting memory. Much of the existing research has focused on how curiosity potentiates exploration in childhood and among non-human animals, highlighting its evolutionary value as a motivational drive to improve cognition. Yet, there is a paucity of information on how curiosity is leveraged in service of learning in older adulthood. This critical gap in our knowledge points to limitations in existing models on the interplay between motivation and cognition across the lifespan. Over the next five years, I will build on my experience in the study of age-related changes in learning and memory to resolve this gap. By leveraging recent neurobiological accounts of curiosity-based learning, I predict that older adults will display a weaker relationship between curiosity and memory. Specifically, I will examine age differences in curiosity as a function of whether it serves to: (1) learn information that is temporarily perplexing (perceptual curiosity), or (2) learn information that you want to know (epistemic curiosity). I will also explore whether kindling curiosity can help minimize age difference in memory (3). I will use behavioural paradigms to induce curiosity during learning, and examine its relationship to later recall of images, words, and facts. ******In pursuing this research, I will contribute to the theoretical enrichment of curiosity and the development of methodologies that can be used to assess it objectively. This research would also represent the first systematic examination of curiosity in normal aging, an important undertaking given that recent evidence shows curiosity-based learning to hinge on brain areas known to be compromised by aging. More broadly, this work will help us understand a critical motivation that we take for granted due to its ubiquity in everyday life. The proposed program of research will also allow me to kick-start an active memory and aging lab that will attract budding national and international scientists looking to train in either official language, reaffirming Canada as a site for innovative cognitive research.***********