Presentation Information
[P2-24]Image Memorability Shapes the Temporal Structure of Memory
*Marianna Lamprou Kokolaki1, Virginie van Wassenhove1 (1. CEA/DRF/Inst. Joliot, NeuroSpin; INSERM, Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit; Université Paris Saclay (France))
Keywords:
Temporal distance,Memorability,Event segmentation,Duration distortion,Temporal memory
Remembering past events involves the ‘what’, the ‘where’ and the ‘when’ of memory. This suggests that we retain the temporal structure of episodes in memory, including detailed information about temporal distances between events. Stimulus properties, known to affect temporal judgments, may also shape this structure. For example, image memorability—an intrinsic property of visual stimuli linked to their likelihood of being remembered—is parametrically related to subjective duration distortions: the duration of presentation of highly memorable images is judged as longer than that of forgettable images (Ma et al., 2024). Herein we report an online study (n=33) in which participants actively viewed sequences of images varying in memorability and then reported the temporal distance between image pairs from each sequence using a Visual Analog Scale. We found that memorable images were systematically perceived as temporally closer in memory than forgettable images, suggesting that memorability also influences temporal memory. Additionally, we found that a transition between low and high memorability altered temporal distance judgments: pairs spanning a change in memorability were reported as further apart in time than pairs within the same memorability group. This suggests that a shift in memorability might act as a boundary, segmenting the sequence into two distinct events. Follow-up online studies revealed that participants are able to segment images into groups based on memorability — showing above-chance performance despite being unaware of the grouping criteria. Overall, these results indicate that stimulus manipulations which elicit online temporal distortions also influence the temporal organization of memory, supporting the view that context operates as a cognitive scaffold for encoding and retrieving episodic temporal information.