The effect of motivational incentives on face-name hyper-binding in older adults.

Abstract

Hyper-binding refers to the spontaneous formation of target-distractor associations in older adults, with consequences for subsequent memory. While hyper-binding reflects a loss of attentional and mnemonic selectivity in aging, a growing literature suggests that motivational states modulate cognitive performance in both younger and older adults. In the current study, healthy younger and older adults (N = 48 in both age groups) completed a face-name hyper-binding task with or without motivational incentives during incidental encoding. Results revealed a motivation-related decrease in hyper-binding in older adults, leading to a paradoxical motivation-related memory decrement in this age group. These findings suggest that reward motivation can counteract age-related deficits in inhibition and attentional selectivity, without necessarily boosting memory performance.

Cluttered memory representations shape cognition in old age

“…Finally, it is possible that the increased binding and richer encodings of older adults can even be leveraged to improve older adults' learning and memory. For example, excessive linking of targets and distractors (i.e., hyperbinding) by older adults can be exploited to reduce forgetting [112] and to improve memory for face-name associations, a common memory complaint among older adults [124][125][126]. Specifically, presenting superimposed task-irrelevant names on faces in an initial selective attention task improved performance on a subsequent face-name association task when face-name pairs were maintained (as opposed to disrupted) from the initial task (i.e., enriched memories formed from the initial phase supported performance on the subsequent associative memory task) [126].…”

Aging and inhibition: Introduction to the special issue.

“…Both younger and older adults show improved attention and memory for stimuli presented on trials associated with monetary reward (for a recent review, see Swirsky & Spaniol, 2019), suggesting that motivation, like practice, can improve inhibitory control in older adults. In this issue, Swirsky and Spaniol (2020) address whether this effect extends to hyper-binding (the automatic association formed at least by older adults between simultaneously occurring targets and distractors; Campbell et al, 2010; Davis, Foy, Giovanello, & Campbell, 2020). They provided performance incentives during a one-back task on faces superimposed with distracting names.…”

“…Indeed, the present collection of articles includes some that challenge inhibitory theory as well as its findings (see especially Nicosia & Balota, 2020). Others report moderating factors (e.g., practice, Wilkinson & Yang, 2020; motivation, Swirsky & Spaniol, 2020; arousal, Gallant, Durbin, & Mather, 2020) or extensions to new domains and connections to other theoretical frameworks in contemporary cognition (e.g., proactive vs. reactive control; Braver, 2012; Higgins, Johnson, & Johnson, 2020) as well as to other literatures (especially neuroscience; Allen, Hellerstedt, Sharma, & Bergström, 2020). We believe these articles provide new insights into the functions and mechanisms of inhibition and how (and possibly when) they differ between younger and older adults.…”

The interaction of curiosity and reward on long-term memory in younger and older adults

“…This reward-related selectivity effect has been demonstrated in both younger and older adults (for a review, see Swirsky & Spaniol, 2019). For example, both age groups show enhanced selective attention when anticipating monetary gain on a flanker task (Williams et al, 2017), they both bind less incidental details to item memory for high-value items comped to low-value items (Hennessee et al, 2018), and older adults successfully ignore superimposed distractor stimuli at encoding when motivated by virtual points (Swirsky & Spaniol, 2020). One possible mechanism for reward-induced selectivity effects is offered by arousal-biased competition theory (ABC; Mather & Sutherland, 2011).…”