Adult age differences in noninstrumental information-seeking strategies.

We often seek information without any explicit incentives or goals (i.e., noninstrumental information seeking, often noted as a manifestation of curiosity). Does noninstrumental information-seeking change with age? We tried to answer the question by making a critical distinction between two information-seeking behaviors: diversive information seeking (i.e., information seeking for topics a person knows little about) and specific information seeking (i.e., information seeking to deepen a person's existing knowledge of a topic). Five hundred participants (age range: 12-79 years old) spontaneously read new facts about different topics. After reading each fact, participants were given the choice to read more facts about the current topic or return to the selection menu to learn about a new topic. We found that with increasing age, participants chose to explore more facts within a topic (i.e., increased specific information seeking) and switched less frequently to new topics (i.e., decreased diversive information seeking). These results indicate that while young people seek out a broader range of information, as people grow older, they develop a preference to deepen their existing knowledge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Memory enhancement for emotional words is attributed to both valence and arousal.

We do not memorize items in our surroundings with equal priority. Previous literature has widely shown that emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral stimuli. However, given emotional stimuli and neutral stimuli often differ in both valence and arousal dimensions, it remains unclear whether the enhancement effects can be attributed to valence, or just to arousal. Importantly, most prior studies relied on a relatively small number of stimuli and non-emotional factors such as word length, imageability and other confounds were hard to control. To address these challenges, we analyzed multiple large databases of recognition memory and free recall tasks from previous research by items with many lexical and semantic covariates included, examining the effects of valence or arousal when controlling for each other. Our results showed a U-shaped relationship between valence and memory performance for both recognition and free recall, and a linear relationship between arousal and memory performance for both tasks. These findings showed that the memory enhancement effects can be attributed to both valence and arousal. We demonstrated these effects with generalizability across many stimuli and controlled for non-emotional factors. Together, these findings disentangle the contribution of valence and arousal in emotional memory enhancement effects and provide insights for current major theories of emotional memory.

Motivated with joy or anxiety: Does approach-avoidance goal framing elicit differential reward-network activation in the brain?

Psychological research on human motivation repeatedly observed that approach goals (i.e., goals to attain success) increase task enjoyment and intrinsic motivation more strongly than avoidance goals (i.e., goals to avoid failure). The present study sought to address how the reward network in the brain-including the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex-is involved when individuals engage in the same task with a focus on approach or avoidance goals. Participants reported stronger positive emotions when they focused on approach goals, but stronger anxiety and disappointment when they focused on avoidance goals. The fMRI analyses revealed that the reward network in the brain showed similar levels of activity to cues predictive of approach and avoidance goals. In contrast, the two goal states were associated with different patterns of activity in the visual cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum during success and failure outcomes. Representation similarity analysis further revealed shared and different representations within the striatum and vmPFC between the approach and avoidance goal states, suggesting both the similarity and uniqueness of the mechanisms behind the two goal states. In addition, the distinct patterns of activation in the striatum were associated with distinct subjective experiences participants reported between the approach and the avoidance conditions. These results suggest the importance of examining the pattern of striatal activity in understanding the mechanisms behind different motivational states in humans.

Developmental trajectories of achievement emotions in mathematics during adolescence.

This study examined how adolescents' emotions in mathematics develop over time. Growth curve modeling was applied to longitudinal data collected annually from 2002 to 2006 (Grades 5-9; N = 3425 German adolescents; Mage = 11.7, 15.6 years at the first and last waves, respectively; 50.0% female). Results indicated that enjoyment and pride decreased over time (Glass's Δs = -.86, -.71). In contrast, negative emotions exhibited more complex patterns: Anger, boredom, and hopelessness increased (Δs = .52, .79, .26), shame decreased (Δ = -.12), and anxiety remained stable (Δ = .00). These change trajectories of emotions were associated with change trajectories of perceived control, intrinsic value, achievement value, and achievement in mathematics. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Metacognition of curiosity: People underestimate the seductive lure of non-instrumental information.

Curiosity - the desire to seek information - is fundamental for learning and performance. Studies on curiosity have shown that people are intrinsically motivated to seek information even if it does not bring an immediate tangible benefit (i.e., non-instrumental information), but little is known as to whether people have the metacognitive capability to accurately monitor their motivation for seeking information. We examined whether people can accurately predict their own non-instrumental information-seeking behavior. Across six experiments (Experiments 1A-1E and 2, total N = 579), participants predicted that they would engage in information-seeking behavior less frequently than they actually did, suggesting that people tend to underestimate the motivational lure of curiosity. Overall, there was no consistent statistical evidence that this underestimation was altered by contextual factors (e.g., the cost to seek information). These results were consistent with the theoretical account that it is difficult for people to make sense of the internally rewarding value of information in advance.

Heart rate variability covaries with amygdala functional connectivity during voluntary emotion regulation.

The Neurovisceral Integration Model posits that shared neural networks support the effective regulation of emotions and heart rate, with heart rate variability (HRV) serving as an objective, peripheral index of prefrontal inhibitory control. Prior neuroimaging studies have predominantly examined both HRV and associated neural functional connectivity at rest, as opposed to contexts that require active emotion regulation. The present study sought to extend upon previous resting-state functional connectivity findings, examining task-related HRV and corresponding amygdala functional connectivity during a cognitive reappraisal task. Seventy adults (52 older and 18 younger adults, 18-84 years, 51% male) received instructions to cognitively reappraise negative affective images during functional MRI scanning. HRV measures were derived from a finger pulse signal throughout the scan. During the task, younger adults exhibited a significant inverse association between HRV and amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) functional connectivity, in which higher task-related HRV was correlated with weaker amygdala-mPFC coupling, whereas older adults displayed a slight positive, albeit non-significant correlation. Furthermore, voxelwise whole-brain functional connectivity analyses showed that higher task-based HRV was linked to weaker right amygdala-posterior cingulate cortex connectivity across older and younger adults, and in older adults, higher task-related HRV correlated positively with stronger right amygdala-right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex connectivity. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of assessing HRV and neural functional connectivity during active regulatory contexts to further identify neural concomitants of HRV and adaptive emotion regulation.

Uncertainty drives exploration of negative information across younger and older adults.

Although individuals generally avoid negative information, recent research documents that they voluntarily explore negative information to resolve uncertainty. However, it remains unclear (a) whether uncertainty facilitates exploration similarly when exploration is expected to lead to negative, neutral, or positive information, and (b) whether older adults seek negative information to reduce uncertainty like younger adults do. This study addresses the two issues across four experimental studies (N = 407). The results indicate that individuals are more likely to expose themselves to negative information when uncertainty is high. In contrast, when information was expected to be neutral or positive, the uncertainty surrounding it did not significantly alter individuals' exploration behavior. Furthermore, we found that uncertainty increased the exploration of negative information in both older and younger adults. In addition, both younger and older adults chose to explore negative information to reduce uncertainty, even when there were positive or neutral alternatives. In contrast to the age-related similarities in these behavioral measures, older adults demonstrated reduced scores in questionnaires on sensation seeking and curiosity, relative to their counterparts who were younger. These results suggest that information uncertainty has a selective facilitation effect on exploration for negative information and that normal aging does not alter this tendency, despite age-related reductions in self-reported measures of personality traits relevant to information seeking.

Longitudinal Association between Maternal Autonomy Support and Controlling Parenting and Adolescents' Depressive Symptoms.

Most studies on autonomy support and controlling parenting rely on children's perceptions, despite the limitations of this approach. This study investigated congruency between autonomy support and controlling parenting reported by mothers and adolescents and their association with adolescents' depressive symptoms via basic psychological needs satisfaction. Participants included 408 Japanese mother-adolescent (Mage = 13.73, SD = 0.90, 52% female) pairs who completed a questionnaire at two time points four months apart. Results demonstrated low to moderate levels of mother-adolescent agreement. Cross-lagged regression models revealed that mothers' reported autonomy support positively predicted adolescents' basic psychological needs satisfactions, which was negatively associated with depressive symptoms. The independent roles of parenting reported by mothers and adolescents for adolescents' well-being were discussed.

Memory of the U.K.'s 2016 EU referendum: The effects of valence on the long-term measures of a public event.

Emotional public events, relative to nonemotional ones, are typically remembered more accurately, more vividly, and with more confidence. However, the majority of previous studies investigating this have focused on negative public events and less is known about positive ones. The current study examined whether positive and negative public events were remembered in a similar manner by assessing individuals' memory for the time when they learned the results of the United Kingdom's 2016 Referendum on its European Union (EU) membership. Participants included U.K. participants who voted to leave the EU in the referendum and found the event highly positive, U.K. participants who voted to remain in the EU and found the event highly negative, and U.S. participants who did not vote and found the event neutral. Data from a total of 851 participants were assessed at four time points over the course of 16 months. Growth curve modeling showed that differences in memory between participants in the Remain group (who reported the highest levels of negative emotion) and those in the Leave group (who reported the highest levels of positive emotion) emerged over time. Specifically, Remain participants maintained higher levels of memory consistency than Leave participants, whereas Leave participants maintained higher levels of memory confidence than Remain participants. These results indicate that positive and negative public events are remembered differently, such that negative valence enhances memory accuracy, while positive valence results in overconfidence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Motivated for near impossibility: How task type and reward modulate task enjoyment and the striatal activation for extremely difficult task.

Economic and decision-making theories suppose that people would disengage from a task with near zero success probability, because this implicates little normative utility values. However, humans often are motivated for an extremely challenging task, even without any extrinsic incentives. The current study aimed to address the nature of this challenge-based motivation and its neural correlates. We found that, when participants played a skill-based task without extrinsic incentives, their task enjoyment increased as the chance of success decreased, even if the task was almost impossible to achieve. However, such challenge-based motivation was not observed when participants were rewarded for the task or the reward was determined in a probabilistic manner. The activation in the ventral striatum/pallidum tracked the pattern of task enjoyment. These results suggest that people are intrinsically motivated to challenge a nearly impossible task but only when the task requires certain skills and extrinsic rewards are unavailable.

Parental perception matters: Reciprocal relations between adolescents' depressive symptoms and parental perceptions.

A large body of research has shown that parents play a vital role in the development of adolescents' depression. However, previous research has overlooked the effects of a potentially critical factor, namely, parental perceptions, and beliefs about adolescents' depression. The present study examined whether parental perceptions of an adolescent's depressive symptoms predict longitudinal changes in adolescents' symptoms (i.e., the parental perception effect). The longitudinal relationship between adolescents' depressive symptoms and parental perceptions of the adolescents' symptoms was analyzed in three independent groups of parent-adolescent pairs (in total N = 1,228). Parental perception and monitoring effects were found in Studies 1B and 2 only in the depressive mood subscale. While a decreased enjoyment subscale showed a perception effect in Study 1A, we obtained null results from other studies. We synthesized the results by applying meta-analytic structural equation modeling to obtain a more robust estimate. The analysis qualified both perception and monitoring effects in both subscales. Our results suggest that when parents believe that their adolescent child is depressed, adolescents are cognitively biased by their parental perceptions over time, resulting in more severe depressive symptoms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Resting-state functional connectivity does not predict individual differences in the effects of emotion on memory.

Emotion-laden events and objects are typically better remembered than neutral ones. This is usually explained by stronger functional coupling in the brain evoked by emotional content. However, most research on this issue has focused on functional connectivity evoked during or after learning. The effect of an individual's functional connectivity at rest is unknown. Our pre-registered study addresses this issue by analysing a large database, the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience, which includes resting-state data and emotional memory scores from 303 participants aged 18-87 years. We applied regularised regression to select the relevant connections and replicated previous findings that whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity can predict age and intelligence in younger adults. However, whole-brain functional connectivity predicted neither an emotional enhancement effect (i.e., the degree to which emotionally positive or negative events are remembered better than neutral events) nor a positivity bias effect (i.e., the degree to which emotionally positive events are remembered better than negative events), failing to support our pre-registered hypotheses. These results imply a small or no association between individual differences in functional connectivity at rest and emotional memory, and support recent notions that resting-state functional connectivity is not always useful in predicting individual differences in behavioural measures.

Now you see it, now you don't: Relevance of threat enhances social anxiety-linked attentional bias to angry faces, but relevance of neutral information attenuates it.

Temporary goals modulate attention to threat. We examined whether attentional bias to angry faces differs depending on whether a temporary background goal is neutral, or threat related, whilst also measuring social anxiety. Participants performed a dot probe task combined with a separate task that induced a temporary goal. Depending on the phase in this goal task, the goal made angry faces or neutral stimuli (i.e., houses) relevant. The dot probe task measured attention to combinations of angry faces, neutral but goal-relevant stimuli (i.e., houses), and neutral control stimuli. Attention was allocated to angry faces when an angry goal was active. This was more pronounced for people scoring high on social phobia. The neutral goal attenuated attention to angry faces and effects of social phobia were no longer apparent. These findings suggest that individual differences in social anxiety interact with current and temporary goals to affect attentional processes.

The effect of low-intensity exercise on emotional and cognitive engagement in the classroom.

This study examined whether engaging in physical exercise during a university class would have beneficial effect on students' learning motivation. One hundred and forty-nine participants took part in a psychology class over nine weeks (one lesson per week); for each lesson, participants engaged in a three-minute physical activity (low-intensity aerobic exercise) or control activity (watching a video), about 20 min after the lesson started. Participants reported higher vigour and lower fatigue during the class when they exercised than when they engaged in control activities. These findings suggest the utility of incorporating a short exercise activity in university settings to enhance students' classroom motivation.

Summary-statistics-based power analysis: A new and practical method to determine sample size for mixed-effects modeling.

This article proposes a summary-statistics-based power analysis-a practical method for conducting power analysis for mixed-effects modeling with two-level nested data (for both binary and continuous predictors), complementing the existing formula-based and simulation-based methods. The proposed method bases its logic on conditional equivalence of the summary-statistics approach and mixed-effects modeling, paring back the power analysis for mixed-effects modeling to that for a simpler statistical analysis (e.g., one-sample t test). Accordingly, the proposed method allows us to conduct power analysis for mixed-effects modeling using popular software such as G*Power or the pwr package in R and, with minimum input from relevant prior work (e.g., t value). We provide analytic proof and a series of statistical simulations to show the validity and robustness of the summary-statistics-based power analysis and show illustrative examples with real published work. We also developed a web app (https://koumurayama.shinyapps.io/summary_statistics_based_power/) to facilitate the utility of the proposed method. While the proposed method has limited flexibilities compared with the existing methods in terms of the models and designs that can be appropriately handled, it provides a convenient alternative for applied researchers when there is limited information to conduct power analysis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Role of Cognitive Control in Age-Related Changes in Well-Being.

Maintaining emotional well-being in late life is crucial for achieving successful and healthy aging. While previous research from Western cultures has documented that emotional well-being improves as individuals get older, previous research provided mixed evidence on the effects of age on well-being in Eastern Asian cultures. However, previous studies in East Asia do not always take into account the effects of cognitive control-an ability which has been considered as a key to enable older adults to regulate their emotions. In the current study, we tested whether cognitive control abilities interact with age in determining individuals' well-being in 59 Japanese females (age range: 26-79; M age = 64.95). Participants' mental health and mental fatigue were tracked for 5 years together with their cognitive control abilities. We found that as individuals became older, they showed improved mental health and decreased mental fatigue. In addition, we found a quadratic effect of age on mental fatigue, which was further qualified by baseline cognitive control abilities. Specifically, in those who had a lower level of cognitive control abilities, mental fatigue declined until the mid-60s, at which point it started increasing (a U-shape effect). In contrast, in those who had a higher level of cognitive control ability, mental fatigue showed a steady decrease with age even after their mid-60s. These results suggest that whether advancing age is associated with positive vs. negative changes in well-being depends on cognitive control abilities, and that preserved cognitive control is a key to maintain well-being in late life.

Closer to critical resting-state neural dynamics in individuals with higher fluid intelligence.

According to the critical brain hypothesis, the brain is considered to operate near criticality and realize efficient neural computations. Despite the prior theoretical and empirical evidence in favor of the hypothesis, no direct link has been provided between human cognitive performance and the neural criticality. Here we provide such a key link by analyzing resting-state dynamics of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) networks at a whole-brain level. We develop a data-driven analysis method, inspired from statistical physics theory of spin systems, to map out the whole-brain neural dynamics onto a phase diagram. Using this tool, we show evidence that neural dynamics of human participants with higher fluid intelligence quotient scores are closer to a critical state, i.e., the boundary between the paramagnetic phase and the spin-glass (SG) phase. The present results are consistent with the notion of "edge-of-chaos" neural computation.

Parental Motivational Perseverance Predicts Adolescents' Depressive Symptoms: An Intergenerational Analysis with Actor-Partner Interdependence Model.

Adolescents' depressive symptoms are affected by a number of factors including life stress, gender, socio-economic status, and parental depression symptoms. However, little is known about whether adolescent depressive symptoms are also affected by parental motivational characteristics. The current study explores the relationship between parental motivational perseverance (i.e., parents' persistency in the face of setbacks and difficulties) and children's depressive symptoms during the adolescence, given the critical role of perseverance in psychological well-being. The predictive utility of two motivational characteristics relevant to perseverance: parents' growth mindset (i.e., one's belief about the malleability of human competence) and grit (i.e., perseverance for long term goals) were examined. Four hundred pairs of Japanese parents (82% mothers) and their adolescent children (50% females; average age at the time of the first assessment = 14.05 years; SD = 0.84) independently completed surveys measuring their growth mindset, grit, and depressive symptoms at two time points (approximately one year apart; attrition rate = 25%). The Actor-Partner Independence Model, a statistical model that accounts for inter-dependence between dyads (e.g., parents and children), was used to examine how parental motivational perseverance predicts the long-term change in their offspring's depressive symptoms. The results showed that parental grit led to the decrease in adolescents' depressive symptoms through the changes in adolescents' grit. On the other hand, parental growth mindset directly predicted the adolescents' depressive symptoms, and this was not mediated by the adolescents' growth mindset. These findings underscore the importance of parental motivational characteristics in regards to adolescents' depressive symptoms.

Emotional arousal amplifies competitions across goal-relevant representation: A neurocomputational framework.

Emotional arousal often facilitates memory for some aspects of an event while impairing memory for other aspects of the same event. Across three experiments, we found that emotional arousal amplifies competition among goal-relevant representations, such that arousal impairs memory for multiple goal-relevant representations while enhancing memory for solo goal-relevant information. We also present a computational model to explain the mechanisms by which emotional arousal can modulate memory in opposite ways via the local/synaptic-level noradrenergic system. The model is based on neurophysiological observations that norepinephrine (NE) released under emotional arousal is locally controlled by glutamate levels, resulting in different NE effects across regions, gating either long-term potentiation or long-term depression by activating different adrenergic receptors depending on NE concentration levels. This model successfully replicated behavioral findings from the three experiments. These findings suggest that the NE's local effects are key in determining the effects of emotion on memory.

Arousal increases neural gain via the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system in younger adults but not in older adults.

In younger adults, arousal amplifies attentional focus to the most salient or goal-relevant information while suppressing other information. A computational model of how the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system can implement this increased selectivity under arousal and an fMRI study comparing how arousal affects younger and older adults' processing indicate that the amplification of salient stimuli and the suppression of non-salient stimuli are separate processes, with aging affecting suppression without impacting amplification under arousal. In the fMRI study, arousal increased processing of salient stimuli and decreased processing of non-salient stimuli for younger adults. In contrast, for older adults, arousal increased processing of both low and high salience stimuli, generally increasing excitatory responses to visual stimuli. Older adults also showed decline in LC functional connectivity with frontoparietal networks that coordinate attentional selectivity. Thus, among older adults, arousal increases the potential for distraction from non-salient stimuli.