Scene image memorability is learnable via feedback

Memorability, or the likelihood that an image is later remembered, is an intrinsic stimulus property that is remarkably consistent across viewers. Despite this consistency in what people remember and forget, previous findings suggest there may be a lack of consistency in what individuals subjectively believe to be memorable and forgettable. We aimed to improve participants' ability to judge memorability using a feedback-based training paradigm containing face images (Experiment 1) or scene images (Experiment 2a-b and a no-feedback control condition). Overall, participants were fairly accurate at categorizing the memorability of images in the feedback condition. In response to the training, participants were able to improve their memorability judgments of scenes, but not faces. Those who used certain strategies to perform the task, namely relying on characteristic features of the scenes, showed greater learning. These results suggest that with training, human participants can better their understanding of image memorability, but may be unable to access its full variance.