Cognitive psychology. Forgetting the presidents

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Historical Memory Studies

Background:

• Collective memory influences societal understanding of historical figures.
• Previous research has explored forgetting curves for individual memory, but less is known about collective forgetting of historical figures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To empirically investigate the process of forgetting U.S. presidents from collective memory.
• To model the rate at which historical figures recede in public recall.
• To predict when recent presidents will be recalled at levels similar to less prominent historical figures.

Main Methods:

• Two studies involving undergraduate students (N=415) in 1974, 1991, and 2009, and adults (N=497) in 2014.
• Participants recalled U.S. presidents and their ordinal positions.
• Forgetting functions were fitted to the recall data to model memory decay.

Main Results:

• A consistent, roughly linear forgetting pattern was observed for presidents preceding the current one.
• Recall without regard to ordinal position also exhibited regular forgetting patterns.
• Forgetting functions predict that recent presidents will be forgotten to the level of past presidents by specific future dates.

Conclusions:

• Forgetting from collective memory is a quantifiable phenomenon that can be studied empirically.
• The findings provide a model for understanding the decay of historical knowledge in the public consciousness.
• This research contributes to the understanding of how societal memory of public figures evolves over time.