For years, psychologists and neuroscientists have thought a reward could improve memory function. But recent research from College of Arts and Sciences suggests that this may be harming our memory.
“We were getting hints that when high-stakes rewards come into the picture, people might start treating rewards as a threat,” said Deepu Murty, Principal Investigator of the Adaptive Memory Lab and associate professor of psychology in CAS. “And in that case, performance on certain types of memory tasks can actually get worse.”
Murty’s lab works to study how memory is impacted and influenced by aspects such as motivation, exploration and maladaptive behaviors. Working with postdoctoral research fellow Lena Skalaban, his lab is working to rethink how a reward mindset could impair — rather than help — a person’s attention, which in turn impacts the memory process.
‘I Spy’ and memory games
Exploring how reward influences memory starts with a game of “I Spy,” a childhood game where players use observation and search.
Researchers for this study used “I Spy” to explore participants’ memories. They split participants into two groups. One had to find a hidden object. The second group received feedback on how quickly they found the item, adding pressure. After the game, participants were asked to not only remember which objects they were asked to find but the scenes in which they appeared.
The group that was judged on their performance may have had a sharper task focus, but researchers noted their poor memory recall of the task.
“We were surprised at how poorly the participants in the feedback group did,” Skalaban said. “We thought maybe their memory for the object itself would be intact, but just their contextual memory would suffer. But they were worse at both.”
‘Attention acts like a flashlight’
Why research participants may not remember the specifics of a task comes down to how attention works.
“Our perceptual system is flooded with information,” Murty explained. “There’s no way memory can store everything we see. Attention acts like a flashlight; it prioritizes certain information and gates what gets encoded.”
When rewards are high and goals are narrow, such as “do this quickly”, that flashlight tightens. It becomes intense but focused on a small area.
That narrowing can be adaptive. If you encounter a snake on a hike, you want your attention locked onto the threat, not on your friend’s hiking shoes.
But in learning contexts, that narrowing can mean losing broader contextual information.
“It’s not about better or worse,” Murty said. “It’s a trade-off. Different modes.”
Widening the flashlight
In follow-up experiments, the researchers tested whether widening participants’ goals would change the outcome.
After finding each object in the “I Spy” game, the participants’ tasks expanded. First, they named the object and then described where it might belong in a house.
These additions to the game improved memory.
“We often worry that giving people more to do will overwhelm them,” Skalaban said. “But asking them to think more deeply about what they were interacting with actually improved memory.”
Murty and Skalaban emphasize that this study is not a condemnation of reward-based motivation. Rather, it highlights the nuances around memory and that reward interacts with attention and arousal in more complex ways.
“Reward can enhance memory,” Skalaban said. “But it’s not so simple.”
Murty agrees that the work raises more questions than it answers.
“We’re scratching the surface,” he said. “There’s a lot more to understand about why this happens—whether it’s attention systems, threat systems, or how reward circuits interact with learning.”
For now, this research from Adaptive Memory Lab broadens an understanding of how our brains may prioritize goal-relevant information at the expense of context.
Murty and Skalaban published these findings as, "Goal orientation shifts attentional focus and impairs reward-motivated memory" in the journal Learning & Memory. Their collaborators for the paper were Allison Neeson (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia), Troy Houser (University of Oregon), Sarah DuBrow (University of Oregon) and Lila Davachi (Columbia University).
Memory in the classroom
The role of memory in the classroom is relatable for many students who may cram for exams. In high-stakes testing environments, students are often given narrow study guides and performance pressures that may unintentionally restrict learning.
“Every student wants a study guide,” Murty said. “But the more specific and high stakes a testing environment gets, the more narrow the knowledge that’s transmitted.”
Modern pedagogical approaches increasingly attempt to reduce threat and broaden learning; through writing assignments, group discussions, and opportunities for revision, instead of having your grade count almost entirely on exam performance.
Skalaban notes that this may be especially important for younger learners whose attentional systems are still developing.
“If you give them broader contexts and encourage deeper processing, that may help them retain information longer,” she said.
— By Maria Soto Cuesta, College of Arts and Sciences student writer