Schedule of Events | Search Abstracts | Invited Symposia | Symposia | Poster Sessions | Data Blitz

Graduate Student Award Winner 

The Origins of Memorability in Infancy

Poster Session E - Monday, March 9, 2026, 2:30 – 4:30 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Marie F. Santillo¹, Cliona O'Doherty^1,2, Áine T. Dineen¹, Anna Truzzi^1,3, Anna Kravchenko¹, Graham King¹, Lorijn Zaadnoordijk¹, Enna-Louise D'Arcy¹, Tamrin Holloway¹, Jessica White¹, Chiara Caldinelli¹, Angela T. Byrne^4,5, Ailbhe Tarrant^6,7, Adrienne Foran^6,7, Eleanor J. Molloy^1,4, Rhodri Cusack¹; ¹Trinity College Dublin, ²Stanford University, ³Queen's University Belfast, ⁴The Coombe Hospital, Dublin, Ireland, ⁵Children's Health Ireland at Crumlin, Dublin, Ireland, ⁶The Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, Ireland, ⁷Children's Health Ireland at Temple Street, Dublin, Ireland

Some images are consistently more memorable than others, independent of context or prior experience, implying that memorability reflects shared properties of visual processing. While adults show reliable neural signatures of memorability in high-level visual cortex and medial temporal regions, it remains unknown whether this sensitivity depends on visual experience or emerges from the brain’s early architecture. Two-month-old infants (n=125 scans), who have had limited visual experience, and adults (n=16) viewed short naturalistic videos during awake fMRI. Framewise memorability scores were predicted using ResMem, a deep neural network trained to predict human memorability. Both infants and adults exhibited activity in ventral visual and medial temporal regions in response to framewise memorability. ROI analyses confirmed the presence of adult-like activity of memorability-sensitive networks in infants. Infants additionally recruited medial and subcortical areas, including the amygdala and hippocampal body and tail, suggesting early involvement of memory-related structures. Memorability effects persisted after controlling for low-level visual features such as attentional saliency and visual entropy. These findings indicate that neural sensitivity to memorability emerges within the first months of life, before extensive visual experience or conscious recall. Memorability appears to reflect an intrinsic organizational principle of the developing visual system, bridging perception and memory from the earliest stages.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging