Highly memorable images are more readily perceived.

Image memorability, the likelihood that a person will remember a particular image, has been shown to be an intrinsic property of the image that is distinct from many other visual and cognitive features. Research thus far has not identified particular visual features that can sufficiently explain this intrinsic memorability, but one possibility is that more and less memorable images differ in their statistical regularity (i.e., how prototypical or distinctive they are). Statistical regularity is known to affect detection time for images, such that stimuli with higher statistical regularity can be detected with shorter presentation directions. Therefore, in the present study, we probed whether memorability affects how quickly an image can be detected. High- and low-memorability images were presented in an intact/scrambled task wherein participants were asked to indicate whether they saw an intact image or noise, and we estimated the presentation duration necessary for participants to reach 70.7% accuracy. Across two experiments using different stimulus materials, we observed and then replicated that more memorable images are associated with shorter detection thresholds than those for less memorable images. The results support the idea that memorable stimuli may better match stored templates used for image perception and/or recognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

People from the U.S. and China think about their personal and collective future differently.

We investigated how people think about their personal life and their country by testing how participants in the U.S. and China think about personal and collective events in the past and future. Using a fluency task, we replicated prior research in showing that participants in the U.S. had a positivity bias toward their personal future and a negativity bias toward their country's future. In contrast, participants in China did not display a positivity or negativity bias toward either their personal or collective future. This result suggests that the valence dissociation between personal and collective future thinking is not universal. Additionally, when people considered the past in addition to the future, they displayed similar valence patterns for both temporal periods, providing evidence that people think about the past and the future similarly. We suggest political and cultural differences (such as dialectical thought) as potential explanations for the differences between countries in future thinking and memory.

Confidence ratings are better predictors of future performance than delayed judgments of learning.

What is the best way to predict future memory performance? The intuitive answer is through judgments of learning (JOLs), in which people estimate how likely they are to remember something in the future. Recent theory, however, suggests that a retrospective confidence rating made just after a retrieval attempt might be a better predictor in some situations. In three preregistered experiments, we compared delayed JOLs to confidence ratings. People studied paired associates (E1) or psychology vocabulary terms (E2 & E3), then took a practice cued-recall test in which they made either a JOL or confidence rating after each response. They then took a final test. In Experiment 1, confidence ratings offered higher resolution (metacognitive accuracy) of memory for paired associates than did JOLs, but in Experiments 2 and 3, the advantage of confidence ratings was much smaller. A mini meta-analysis indicated that confidence ratings have a small advantage in predicting future performance over delayed JOLs. We argue that the two judgments rely on similar cues, and that even though JOLs explicitly ask people to predict future performance, doing so does not enhance prediction accuracy. Rather, the presence of a retention interval in the JOL cue adds variability to the judgment process.