Speakers strategically adjust their descriptions based on perceived memorability

When talking about the world in front of us, humans are remarkably efficient communicators. Our referential expressions help listeners efficiently find what we’re talking about by strategically adding color or material words as needed. But most conversations are about things that are not physically in front of us. In these cases, do we also use language to efficiently help a listener retrieve an item from memory? Across two experiments, we asked participants to describe images to help a listener recall each image. In Experiment 1 (total n = 600), participants spontaneously incorporated expectations about memorability, providing relatively more description for images that people expect to be less memorable. In Experiment 2 (n = 300), we replicated this pattern even when participants had no access to or knowledge of their listener’s prior experience. Interestingly, people’s descriptions were more aligned with subjective estimates of memorability, rather than objective, empirically-derived metrics. Together, this work provides new evidence that speakers spontaneously guide listeners’ mental processes to effectively facilitate their memory recall.