Judgments of Learning Reveal Conscious Access to Stimulus Memorability

Despite the massive capacity of visual long-term memory, individuals do not successfully encode all visual information they wish to remember. This variability in encoding success has been traditionally ascribed to fluctuations in individuals’ cognitive states (e.g., sustained attention) and differences in memory encoding processes (e.g., depth of encoding). However, recent work has shown that a considerable amount of variability in encoding success stems from intrinsic stimulus properties that determine the ease of encoding across individuals. While researchers have identified several perceptual and semantic properties that contribute to this stimulus memorability phenomenon, much remains unknown, including whether individuals are aware of the memorability of stimuli they encounter. In the present study, we investigated whether individuals have conscious access to the memorability of real-world stimuli while forming self-referential judgments of learning (JOL) during explicit memory encoding (Experiments 1A-B) and when asked about the perceived memorability of a stimulus in the absence of attempted encoding (Experiments 2A-B). We found that both JOLs and perceived memorability estimates were consistent across individuals and reliably predicted stimulus memorability. However, this apparent access to the properties that define memorability was not comprehensive. Individuals unexpectedly remembered and forgot consistent sets of stimuli as well. Thus, our findings demonstrate that individuals have conscious access to some—but not all—aspects of stimulus memorability and that this access exists regardless of the present demands on stimulus encoding.