Age Differences in State Curiosity: The Role of Retrieval Failures and Prior Knowledge

Experimental studies have demonstrated that older adults report higher state curiosity in response to epistemic stimuli than younger adults. The mechanisms underlying this age-related increase in state curiosity, however, are not yet fully understood. Our previous findings suggest that retrieval failures may help explain this effect: retrieval failures occur more frequently for epistemic stimuli in older than in younger adults and positively predict state curiosity. Still, the reason why retrieval failures increase with age remains unclear. Two explanations are possible. First, older adults may possess more available knowledge than younger adults and therefore have more opportunities to experience retrieval failures. Second, increasing age may be associated with greater difficulty accessing stored knowledge. In the current study, we examine whether these two mechanisms explain the mediating role of retrieval failures in the relationship between age and state curiosity.