Surprise and Curiosity Shape Memory Differently With Age, Study Reports
Why do some facts stick in our minds while others vanish almost instantly? A new study has taken a closer look at curiosity, surprise, and formal education to understand how they influence memory. The research compared younger and older adults, uncovering that age may alter the way curiosity supports learning. According to the authors, the results shed light on how motivation and cognitive processes interact throughout life.
Note: This article is intended for general information and educational purposes. It summarizes scientific research in accessible language for a broad audience and is not an official scientific press release.
Curiosity, Surprise, and Memory: A Closer Look
The study, conducted by Alexandra Sobczak, Tineke Steiger, Marthe Mieling, and Nico Bunzeck from the University of Lübeck (Germany), was published in Scientific Reports in 2025. The authors set out to explore how different types of curiosity – state and trait – interact with surprise and education to shape memory across younger and older adults. According to the authors, previous studies established that curiosity can enhance learning, but the role of age and surprise in this process had not been systematically addressed.
The researchers emphasized that epistemic curiosity, or the desire to acquire new knowledge, plays a central role in motivation and memory. Within this concept, trait curiosity refers to a stable disposition to seek knowledge, while state curiosity is a temporary, situational drive. Their study asked: how do these two forms of curiosity, combined with surprise, affect long-term memory? And how do these dynamics differ between younger and older adults?
What the Researchers Investigated
The team designed three behavioral experiments to examine different aspects of curiosity and memory. According to the authors, the first two experiments compared young and older adults to see how curiosity and surprise influenced long-term memory. The third experiment extended the investigation by looking at how formal education interacts with trait and state curiosity.
The central hypothesis, as the authors describe, was that state curiosity would promote memory more strongly than trait curiosity, and that surprise might further amplify this effect in young adults. They also expected differences across age groups and possible links between curiosity and years of education.
How the Study Was Conducted
The authors ran three separate experiments with a total of 331 participants. In the first experiment, 54 individuals—both young and older adults—completed a trivia task designed to elicit curiosity. In the second experiment, 81 participants engaged in a similar task, but with additional conditions introducing surprising answers to test the interaction between curiosity, surprise, and memory. The third and largest experiment involved 196 participants and focused on the relationship between curiosity, formal education, and memory through mediation models.
According to the study, participants were asked to rate their curiosity about trivia questions, later shown the answers, and tested on their recall. Recognition tasks for incidental face stimuli were also included. The design allowed the researchers to measure how much curiosity before learning influenced memory afterward, and whether unexpected or surprising information enhanced this effect. Formal education levels were included in the third experiment as a factor potentially shaping trait curiosity and its relation to state curiosity.
What Makes This Study New
The authors highlight that their work connects curiosity and surprise with memory in a way that considers age differences. While prior studies linked curiosity with improved memory performance, few addressed whether this effect changes across the lifespan or how surprise might alter the outcome. By including both young and older adults and analyzing the interaction of education, trait, and state curiosity, the study broadens the understanding of motivational influences on learning.
Compared to earlier research, this study also emphasizes the distinction between trait curiosity, which appeared less relevant for memory performance, and state curiosity, which showed stronger effects. The authors underscore that their mediation analysis provided fresh evidence that education can indirectly shape curiosity dynamics.
Key Findings from the Study
According to the authors, the results across the three experiments revealed several consistent patterns:
- State curiosity, not trait curiosity, predicted memory performance. In both young and older adults, the memory advantage was driven by situational curiosity rather than stable personality traits. The authors emphasize that this suggests memory benefits depend less on general disposition and more on whether participants were curious in the moment of learning. Trait curiosity, while linked to education, did not directly enhance recall.
- Surprise enhanced the effect of curiosity in younger adults. When participants encountered unexpected answers, their memory improved more strongly if they had been curious beforehand. The authors describe this as a clear interaction between curiosity and surprise. In older adults, the effect was reduced, which the authors interpret as aligning with models of age-related changes in arousal.
- Age differences aligned with theories of arousal and cognition. The diminished impact of surprise in older participants was presented as consistent with predictive coding theories, which suggest that the brain’s ability to use surprise to strengthen memory relies on mechanisms that weaken with age. According to the authors, this provides evidence that motivational and cognitive processes interact differently across the lifespan.
- Education influenced curiosity. The authors report that trait curiosity could predict state curiosity directly, but also indirectly through formal education. In other words, individuals with higher levels of education tended to show stronger links between their general disposition for curiosity and their situational motivation to learn. The mediation model, according to the authors, supports the idea that educational background shapes how curiosity operates in specific learning contexts.
- A mediation pathway connected education, trait curiosity, and state curiosity. By including a large sample in the third experiment, the researchers could analyze how these factors interact statistically. The results indicated that education not only correlated with trait curiosity but also strengthened the predictive power of trait curiosity on state curiosity. The authors describe this as showing that education acts as a bridge, reinforcing how general interest in knowledge translates into momentary engagement during learning tasks.
Taken together, these findings, the authors argue, refine the understanding of how curiosity and surprise jointly contribute to memory. The results confirm that curiosity is not a uniform construct but rather has distinct forms, with state curiosity being most relevant to actual recall. They also highlight that motivational influences such as surprise are not static across age groups, but shaped by developmental changes and educational history.
Authors’ Conclusions
The authors conclude that state curiosity is a key driver of long-term memory for new information, while trait curiosity has less direct influence. They interpret the reduced role of surprise in older adults as supporting predictive coding theories and models of age-related changes in arousal and cognition.
According to the study, trait intellectual curiosity predicted state curiosity both directly and indirectly via formal education in their mediation model. The authors note that this statistical pathway characterizes their sample and design.
According to the authors, a central distinction between young and older adults emerged: while surprise interacted with curiosity to shape memory performance in the younger group, this interaction was largely absent in older adults. In older participants, memory benefits were primarily tied to state curiosity itself, suggesting that the influence of surprise diminishes with age.
They also note specific limitations. As the experiments were cross-sectional, the results do not capture longitudinal changes. The second experiment included an online setting, which limited environmental control. In addition, the authors emphasize the need for larger samples and more balanced age distributions, particularly in the third experiment. They suggest that further studies could extend the investigation to broader populations and explore the underlying neural processes.
The article reports that future research should continue to examine the interplay between curiosity, surprise, and aging, particularly how educational background shapes motivational and cognitive outcomes.
The information in this article is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. For medical advice, please consult your doctor.
References
Sobczak, A., Steiger, T., Mieling, M., & Bunzeck, N. (2025). Curiosity and surprise differentially affect memory depending on age. Scientific Reports, 15, 32423. Published September 12, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-14479-x
