The Impact of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit Titles on Memory for Artist-Created and AI-Generated Art

Abstract

Research has shown that pseudo-profound bullshit titles increase the perceived profundity of art. The current study asks whether this effect extends to memory. Participants rated the liking and perceived profundity of artist-created and AI-generated paintings, paired with mundane or pseudo-profound bullshit titles. Approximately 24 h later, participants completed an old/new recognition test, including both old and new AI-generated and artist-created images. Pseudo-profound bullshit titles increased perceived profundity. However, recognition performance was neither affected by titles nor rated profundity. Instead, liking predicted recognition performance, and paintings created by artists were better recognized than AI images. These findings show that although pseudo-profound bullshit titles may initially seem more profound, they do not encourage people to engage in deep meaningful analysis of the artwork. In addition, our study suggests that paintings created by artists are more memorable than AI-generated ones, yet the underlying mechanisms of this effect still need to be uncovered.