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Description: Motivation influences goals, decisions, and memory formation. Imperative motivation drives action to address urgent goals, whereas interrogative motivation supports broader learning for future goals. We induced motivational states by manipulating cover stories for a reinforcement learning task: The Imperative group imagined executing an art museum heist, whereas the Interrogative group imagined planning a future heist. Participants repeatedly chose among four “doors” and sampled trial-unique paintings with variable rewards, then returned the next day for a surprise memory test. Relative to the Imperative group, the Interrogative group showed more directed exploration and less exploitation during reinforcement learning. Furthermore, the Interrogative group showed better recognition of paintings and significant reward modulation of memory. Conversely, participants in the Imperative group showed worse memory and no reward modulation. We propose that interrogative and imperative motivational states differentially modulate immediate performance and longer-term learning, bearing implications for education, behavior change, and clinical interventions.