ELSC Seminar Series

It is unclear what makes some of the numerous visual scenes we encounter every day memorable (while others are not) when we make no intentional effort to memorize them. Semantic content is assumed to influence image memory while physical image dimensions are typically not. In my lab we reasoned that during naturalistic vision, free of task-related modulations, images that are more physically salient will stimulate more visual system processing resources (from retina to cortex) and would, therefore, be better remembered. In my talk I will describe a set of studies carried in our lab (including online) where we manipulated different physical image dimensions while participants freely viewed the images and were naïve to the memory aspect of the study. Their memory for the previously viewed images was later tested in a surprise memory recognition task. We found that across experiments memory for more physically salient stimuli was consistently higher, and that the memorability of more physically salient images was higher. These results suggest that during naturalistic behavior visual memory is likely to be influenced by both bottom-up and top-down processes.