Abstract
Collective memory studies show that Americans remember their presidents in a predictable pattern, which can be described as a serial position curve with an additional spike for Abraham Lincoln. However, all prior studies have tested Americans' collective memory for the presidents by their names. How well do Americans know the faces of the presidents? In two experiments, we investigated presidential facial recognition and compared facial recognition to name recognition. In Experiment 1, an online sample judged whether each of the official portraits of the US presidents and similar portraits of nonpresidents depicted a US president. The facial recognition rate (around 60%) was lower than the name recognition rate in past research (88%), but the overall pattern still fit a serial position curve. Some nonpresidents, such as Alexander Hamilton, were still falsely identified as presidents at high rates. In Experiment 2, a college sample completed a recognition task composed of both faces and names to directly compare the recognition rates. As predicted, subjects recognized the names of the presidents more frequently than the faces. Some presidents were frequently identified by their names but not by their faces (e.g. John Quincy Adams), while others were the opposite (e.g. Calvin Coolidge). Together, our studies show that Americans' memory for the faces of the presidents is somewhat worse than their memory for the names of the presidents but still follows the same pattern, indicating that collective memories contain more than just verbal information.
Highlights
When looking at the front page of a newspaper or the homepage of a news website, it is difficult to not find at least one mention of the President of the United States of America
The goal of the current study was to examine how well Americans recognize the faces of the presidents and how facial recognition compares to name recognition
Subjects were more likely to falsely identify the faces of nonpresidents as presidents (M = .30) than the names of nonpresidents as presidents (M = .14, Mdiff = .16, 95% CI = [.13, .18]), t(99) = 11.40, p < .001, d = 1.14. These results suggest that Americans have better memory for the names— rather than faces—of the presidents
Summary
When looking at the front page of a newspaper or the homepage of a news website, it is difficult to not find at least one mention of the President of the United States of America. Stepping into the role of president immediately thrusts an individual to an almost unparalleled level of fame around the world. Every American, as well as many others, recognizes their name and appearance. The prestige and the widespread knowledge of the US president make it a prime example of collective memory. Collective memories are memories shared by a group, often ones that
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