We investigated whether an object that differs in its nameability from surrounding objects becomes salient and how this semantic salience affects memory for the objects' locations. Participants viewed sets of four objects on a screen, with either an easily nameable object among three hardly nameable objects or vice versa. After a filler task, the objects were presented again and participants judged whether their location was the same as before. The objects were shown either alone or with a previously studied object from the same set, serving as a contextual cue. When objects were presented with context, location memory was better for easily nameable than for hardly nameable objects. Moreover, easily nameable objects were remembered better when they were salient during encoding, whereas salience had no effect on hardly nameable objects. When objects were recalled alone, nameability did not affect performance. Salience again influenced memory for easily nameable objects, but in the opposite direction: Location memory was better for objects that were not salient during encoding. These findings indicate that effects of semantic salience on object-location memory depend on both object nameability and the presence of contextual cues.
