Target recognition and lure rejection: Two sides of the same memorability coin?

ABSTRACT

The human brain has a massive storage capacity for remembering visual information, but certain objects appear to be more likely to be remembered than the others across observers. Here, we tested a new possible explanation for the differential memorability of objects. The explanation states that certain objects are more memorable due to sheer frequency of encounter. We had a group of observers provide subjective frequency estimates for the objects in our stimulus set. We found that items that observers judged as less frequently seen were easier to reject as new items, but did not correlate with which items were more likely to garner hit responses when they were old. In summary, our findings suggest that memorability may be a multifaceted construct, with different aspects of the memoranda driving different component judgements that observers make.

KEYWORDS:

• Visual memory
• recognition memory
• human memory
• memorability

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors’ contributions

The study was conceived of by Keisuke Fukuda and Chong Zhao. The programming, analyses, and first draft of the manuscript were completed by Chong Zhao and Keisuke Fukuda. Geoffrey F. Woodman provided feedback on the results and paper, as well as financing the study.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by external grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS-2147064) and the National Institutes of Health [P30-EY08126 and T32-EY007135] to Geoffrey F. Woodman; Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences.