Target Recognition and Lure Rejection: Two Sides of the Same Memorability Coin?

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.