Chaoxiong Ye^1,2 (), Lijing Guo¹, Nathan Wang³, Qiang Liu², Weizhen Xie⁴; ¹University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, ²Sichuan Normal University, China, ³John Hopkins University, ⁴University of Maryland

Human observers consistently exhibit remarkable recall for certain stimuli, such as, face and scene images. This phenomenon is attributed to the concept of stimulus memorability, which is thought to represent an ensemble perceptual quality that enhances the long-term retention of visual information. Nevertheless, a comprehensive understanding of how this stimulus property contributes to the formation of visual memory remains unclear. In this study, we aim to investigate the hypothesis that memorability imparts a constant perceptual advantage in the establishment of visual short-term memory (VSTM). Given the inherently probabilistic nature of visual perception, this hypothesis posits that memorable information should increase the likelihood of an item being encoded into VSTM during the critical period when fragile sensory information is transferred into durable VSTM. To test this hypothesis, participants were tasked with memorizing images of three unfamiliar faces, each characterized by a specific level of memorability (memorable vs. forgettable). Memory performance was assessed following a brief delay using the change detection paradigm. Memory stimuli were consistently presented for 150 milliseconds, and the memory-and-test stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) remained fixed at 1,600 milliseconds. However, we introduced a 200-millisecond consolidation mask at various memory-and-mask SOAs to manipulate the time available for further encoding of these stimuli into VSTM. Our findings reveal that participants consistently exhibited better recall for memorable faces when compared to forgettable ones across all masking conditions. These results suggest that the facilitation of VSTM by memorability manifests early (≤150 ms), distinguishing it temporally from the impact of stimulus familiarity on later stages of VSTM formation, as observed in some prior studies (>330 ms). Future research should aim to differentiate this early memorability effect from the later familiarity effect, with the ultimate goal of unraveling the intricate processes underlying VSTM formation within the context of naturalistic vision.

Acknowledgements: This study received funding support from the Academy of Finland (355369) to Chaoxiong Ye. Weizhen Xie is supported by the NIH Path to Independence Award (K99NS126492).