Get the Picture? Goodness of Image Organization Contributes to Image Memorability
This is a preprint. Please find the published and peer reviewed version of the paper here: https://www.journalofcognition.org/articles/10.5334/joc.80/. Images differ in their intrinsic memorability. The factors driving image memorability are not fully understood. Here, we hypothesized that memorability at least partly depends on goodness of image organization. Good organizations have been associated with fast, efficient processing and robustness against transformation (e.g., shrinking). Based on the main hypothesis, these characteristics would then also pertain to memorable images. Study 1 focused on fast processing and predicted that memorable images are easier to categorize rapidly, while Study 2 predicted that they survive a shrinking transformation better. We used real-life scene images of 14 semantic categories from a previous memorability study. Each image was assigned a “categorizability” and “shrinkability” score based on the average performance across participants on a rapid-scene categorization task (Study 1) and a thumbnail search task (Study 2), respectively. The predicted positive relation between categorizability and memorability was not observed. A post-hoc explanation attributed this null result to a masking role of image distinctiveness. In the thumbnail search task, memorable images were located faster, as predicted, but Study 2 could not rule out that this was merely a result of their distinctiveness. A third study quantified the images on distinctiveness and statistically controlled for this variable in a reanalysis of Study 1 and Study 2. When distinctiveness was controlled for, categorizability and memorability did show a significant positive correlation. Moreover, the results also argued against the alternative explanation of the results of Study 2. Taken together, the results support the hypothesis that goodness of organization contributes to image memorability.