Memory for naturalistic pictures is exceptionally good. However, little is known about people’s ability to monitor the memorability of naturalistic pictures. We report the first systematic investigation into the accuracy and basis of metamemory in this domain. People studied pictures of naturalistic scenes, predicted their chances of recognizing each picture at a later test (judgment of learning, JOL), and completed a recognition memory test. Across three experiments, JOLs revealed substantial accuracy. This was due to people basing their JOLs on multiple cues, most of which predicted recognition memory. Identified cues include intrinsic picture attributes (e.g., peacefulness of scenes; scenes with or without persons) and extrinsic aspects of the study situation (e.g., presentation frequency; semantic distinctiveness of scenes with respect to the context). This work provides a better understanding of metamemory for pictures and it demonstrates close parallels between metamemory for naturalistic scenes and verbal materials.

自然主义图片的记忆力非常好。然而，人们对自然主义图片的可记忆性的监测能力知之甚少。我们报告了对该领域元记忆的准确性和基础的首次系统调查。人们研究自然场景的图片，预测他们在以后的测试（学习判断，JOL）中识别每张图片的机会，并完成了识别记忆测试。在三个实验中，JOLs 显示出相当大的准确性。这是由于人们将他们的 JOL 建立在多个线索上，其中大部分都预测了识别记忆。识别的线索包括内在的图片属性（例如，场景的平静；有或没有人的场景）和研究情境的外在方面（例如，呈现频率；场景相对于上下文的语义独特性）。这项工作提供了对图片元记忆的更好理解，并展示了自然场景的元记忆和语言材料之间的密切相似之处。