The faces we encounter throughout our lives make different impressions on us: Some are remembered at first glance, while others are forgotten. Previous work has found that the distinctiveness of a face influences its memorability--the degree to which face images are remembered or forgotten. Here, we generalize the concept of face memorability in a large-scale memory study. First, we find that m...

When we encounter a new person or place, we may easily encode it into our memories, or we may quickly forget it. Recent work finds that this likelihood of encoding a given entity – memorability – is highly consistent across viewers and intrinsic to an image; people tend to remember and forget the same images. However, several forces influence our memories beyond the memorability of the stimulus...

Previous studies have identified that images carry the attribute of memorability, a predictive value of whether a novel image will be later remembered or forgotten. In this thesis we investigate the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect image memorability. First, we find that intrinsic differences in memorability exist at a finer-grained scale than previously documented....

Security questions are one of the techniques used to recover passwords. The main limitation of security questions is that users find strong answers difficult to remember. This leads users to trade-off security for the convenience of an improved memorability. Previous research found that increased fun and enjoyment can lead to an enhanced memorability, which provides a better learning experience...

The image memorability consists in the faculty of an image to be recalled after a period of time. Recently, the memorability of an image database was measured and some factors responsible for this memorability were highlighted. In this paper, we investigate the role of visual attention in image memorability around two axis. The first one is experimental and uses results of eye-tracking performe...

Not all visual memories are equal—some endure in our minds, while others quickly disappear. Recent behavioral work shows we can reliably predict which images will be remembered. This image property is called memorability. Memorability is intrinsic to an image, robust across observers, and unexplainable by low-level visual features. However, its neural bases and relation with perception and memo...

A long-standing question in neuroscience is how perceptual processes select stimuli for encoding and later retrieval by memory processes. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with human participants, we report the discovery of a global, stimulus-driven processing stream that we call memorability. Memorability automatically tags the statistical distinctiveness of stimuli for later...

Images have intrinsic memorable properties that enable humans to recall them. In this thesis, I developed and carried out a procedure to measure the memorability of an image by running hundreds of human-trials and making use of a custom designed image dataset, the Mem60k dataset. The large store of ground-truth memorability data enabled a variety of insights and applications. The data revealed ...

To ensure that users do not choose weak personal identification numbers (PINs), many banks give out system-generated PINs, using computers to generate random PINs. 4-digit is the most commonly used PIN length, but 6-digit system-generated PINs are also becoming popular. The increased security we get from using system-generated PINs, however, comes at the cost of memorability. And while banks ar...

Previous studies have identified that images carry the attribute of memorability, a predictive value of whether a novel image will be later remembered or forgotten. Here we investigate the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect image memorability. First, we find that intrinsic differences in memorability exist at a finer-grained scale than previously documented. Second, w...