Memorability refers to an intrinsic stimulus property that predicts whether a stimulus will be remembered or forgotten across individuals (e.g., Bainbridge et al., 2013). The present study investigated whether information paired with highly memorable images during encoding would show similarly high rates of memory. Twelve experiments were conducted. In Experiments 1-12, participants saw images (faces or scenes) and heard names (first names or city names) as paired associates during an encoding phase. Recognition memory was better for high-memorability images than low-memorability images, replicating past results. In addition, first names and city names paired with high-memorability faces were more likely to be remembered on cued and free-recall tests. In contrast, city names paired with highly memorable scenes during encoding did not show an advantage in cued or free-recall tests. The results suggest that highly memorable faces confer a memory advantage to first and city names, but scenes did not show name memorability conference. These findings suggest that highly memorability faces may be leveraged to enhance retention of associated information, and further research could investigate the implications in applied contexts such as advertising, education, and political messaging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Cook et al. (Thu,) studied this question.