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Value-directed remembering involves two key mechanisms: automatic processing and strategic processing. Automatic processing relies on the brain’s reward system and is associated with midbrain dopaminergic pathways and medial temporal-lobe activity. Strategic processing, in contrast, involves conscious, effortful encoding strategies and engages semantic-processing regions and executive control systems. This article reviews the developmental trajectory of value-directed remembering from childhood to old age through the lens of a dual-process model. Children and adolescents primarily rely on automatic processing; adults are capable of flexibly switching between the two processes; older adults tend to rely more on strategic processing. These findings reflect the dynamic developmental changes in the brain’s reward and executive-control systems. Future research should further investigate the synergistic interplay between dual-processing mechanisms, the moderating role of cultural contexts, and the efficacy of intervention strategies to deepen our understanding of the developmental trajectory of value-directed memory.
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Li et al. (2025) studied this question.
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