Misremembering a familiar object: mnemonic illusion, not drawing bias

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Memory Studies
• Visual Perception

Background:

• Systematic misremembering of the Queen's head on British coins was previously reported.
• An alternative hypothesis suggested a leftward drawing bias could explain this memory illusion.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test the hypothesis that a leftward drawing bias, rather than memory, causes the misremembering of the Queen's head on coins.
• To investigate the role of schemas in memory illusions related to coin design.

Main Methods:

• Experiment 1: British participants verbally recalled the Queen's head direction.
• Experiment 2: Canadian participants drew a Canadian coin.
• Experiment 3: Compared memory for British coins and stamps.

Main Results:

• Verbal recall (Experiment 1) yielded results similar to pictorial recall, contradicting the drawing bias hypothesis.
• Canadian participants did not exhibit leftward misremembering of their coin (Experiment 2).
• Memory for British coins and stamps (Experiment 3) supported the schema explanation.

Conclusions:

• The Queen's Head memory illusion is not caused by a leftward drawing bias.
• Results support Jones's schema explanation for memory illusions in coin design.
• Memory schemas play a significant role in systematic recall errors for familiar visual information.