Shared memories driven by the intrinsic memorability of items

TL;DR

This paper explores how intrinsic memorability of visual items influences memory retention, highlighting brain sensitivity and universal patterns across individuals, which reveal organizational principles of sensory processing.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the current understanding of visual memorability and its neural correlates, emphasizing the automatic and rapid brain responses to memorable items.

Findings

Certain visual items are intrinsically memorable across observers.

The brain automatically responds to memorability during perception.

Memorability reflects organizational principles of sensory processing.

Abstract

When we experience an event, it feels like our previous experiences, our interpretations of that event (e.g., aesthetics, emotions), and our current state will determine how we will remember it. However, recent work has revealed a strong sway of the visual world itself in influencing what we remember and forget. Certain items -- including certain faces, words, images, and movements -- are intrinsically memorable or forgettable across observers, regardless of individual differences. Further, neuroimaging research has revealed that the brain is sensitive to memorability both rapidly and automatically during late perception. These strong consistencies in memory across people may reflect the broad organizational principles of our sensory environment, and may reveal how the brain prioritizes information before encoding items into memory. In this chapter, I will discuss our current state-of-the-art understanding of memorability for visual information, and what these findings imply about how we perceive and remember visual events.