Instructed motivational states bias reinforcement learning and memory formation.

ABSTRACT: Motivation influences goals, decisions, and memory formation. Imperative motivation links urgent goals to actions, narrowing the focus of attention and memory. Conversely, interrogative motivation integrates goals over time and space, supporting rich memory encoding for flexible future use. We manipulated motivational states via cover stories for a reinforcement learning task: The imperative group imagined executing a museum heist, whereas the interrogative group imagined planning a future heist. Participants repeatedly chose among four doors, representing different museum rooms, to sample trial-unique paintings with variable rewards (later converted to bonus payments). The next day, participants performed a surprise memory test. Crucially, only the cover storie

SUBMITTER: Sinclair AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10401012 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature