Understanding Image Memorability

Why are some images easier to remember than others? Here, we review recent developments in our understanding of 'image memorability', including its behavioral characteristics, its neural correlates, and the optimization principles from which it originates. We highlight work that has used large behavioral data sets to leverage memorability scores computed for individual images. These studies demonstrate that the mapping of image content to image memorability is not only predictable, but also non-intuitive and multifaceted. This work has also led to insights into the neural correlates of image memorability, by way of the discovery of a type of population response magnitude variation that emerges in high-level visual cortex as well as higher stages of deep neural networks trained to categorize objects.