More memorable scenes and faces are learned better and forgotten more slowly

Some images are consistently more likely to be remembered or forgotten, but there is debate over the mechanisms that underlie these effects. Here we attempted to narrow the theoretical space by examining forgetting functions for high- and low-memorable images (faces and scenes). Experiments 1 and 2 used a continuous recognition procedure-a modified recognition memory task in which study events are interleaved with test trials-and Experiment 3 evaluated forgetting over longer retention intervals using a traditional study-test procedure. Forgetting functions were estimated using a hierarchical Bayesian model that accounted for subject and item effects, in addition to retention interval. The results from all three experiments revealed a consistent pattern: high-memorable images enjoyed both a higher initial degree of learning and a lower rate of forgetting than low-memorable images. This combination of results indicates that high-memorable images benefit both from enhanced encoding and from retarded forgetting. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of image memorability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).