Collective Memory for American Leaders: Measuring Recognition for the Names and Faces of the US Presidents

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

Deciding what to replicate:A decision model for replication study selection under resource and knowledge constraints

Robust scientific knowledge is contingent upon replication of original findings. However,researchers who conduct replication studies face a dicult problem; there are many morestudies in need of replication than there are funds available for replicating. To select studies forreplication eciently, we need to understand which studies arethe mostin need of replication.In other words, we need to understand which replication eorts have the highest expected utility.In this article we propose a general rule for study selection in replication research based onthereplication valueof the claims considered for replication. Thereplication valueof a claimis defined as the maximum expected utility we could gain by conducting a replication of theclaim, and is a function of (1) the value of being certain about the claim, and (2) uncertaintyabout the claim based on current evidence. We formalize this definition in terms of a causaldecision model, utilizing concepts from decision theory and causal graph modeling. We discussthe validity of usingreplication valueas a measure of expected utility gain, and we suggestapproaches for deriving quantitative estimates ofreplication value

Deciding what to replicate: a formal definition of “replication value” and a decision model for replication study selection

Multivariate analysis of psychological dat

Modeling Evacuation of Population Centers Using NetLogo

The actions of citizens during terror and evacuation events are oftentimes hard to predict. Using NetLogo, a ’crossplatform multi-agent programmable modeling environment’ from The Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling (CCL), the socio- and psychological factors affecting decisionmaking in these situations can be effectively simulated. Through appropriate research in categories of modeling and sociology, human behavior can be studied to help urban developers and social engineers protect the nation’s interest: its citizens. Citizens that follow certain algorithms, or behave in certain ways, have a much greater chance of survival

Modeling Evacuation of Population Centers Using NetLogo

The actions of citizens during terror and evacuation events are oftentimes hard to predict. Using NetLogo, a ’crossplatform multi-agent programmable modeling environment’ from The Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling (CCL), the socio- and psychological factors affecting decisionmaking in these situations can be effectively simulated. Through appropriate research in categories of modeling and sociology, human behavior can be studied to help urban developers and social engineers protect the nation’s interest: its citizens. Citizens that follow certain algorithms, or behave in certain ways, have a much greater chance of survival

Remembering the Presidents

We report research on how important historical figures—presidents of the United States—are remembered and forgotten. When students are given 5 minutes to recall presidents (in order, if possible), they remember the first few, the most recent, and Lincoln and his successors much better than the rest. When this kind of study is done over time, a regular forgetting curve appears, and this allows us to assess the rate of forgetting for more recent presidents. Some presidents (Kennedy, Nixon) are being forgotten more slowly than others (Truman, Ford). People are more accurate in recognizing presidents than in recalling them, but they also show interesting false recognitions, identifying people like Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin as having been president. This same pattern—greater accurate and false memory in recognition tasks compared to recall tasks—often occurs in memory for word lists, too. Together these studies provide a window into processes of collective remembering, how groups of people (in this case, Americans) remember salient events of their group’s past: its leaders. They also show that the effects derived from studying artificial materials in the lab may generalize more widely to other sorts of material with a different type of memory test

Recognizing the Presidents: Supplemental Materials

This is a project containing data, analyses, and materials for Roediger & DeSoto (in press), Recognizing the presidents: Was Alexander Hamilton President? Psychological Science

Remembering the Presidents

We report research on how important historical figures—presidents of the United States—are remembered and forgotten. When students are given 5 minutes to recall presidents (in order, if possible), they remember the first few, the most recent, and Lincoln and his successors much better than the rest. When this kind of study is done over time, a regular forgetting curve appears, and this allows us to assess the rate of forgetting for more recent presidents. Some presidents (Kennedy, Nixon) are being forgotten more slowly than others (Truman, Ford). People are more accurate in recognizing presidents than in recalling them, but they also show interesting false recognitions, identifying people like Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin as having been president. This same pattern—greater accurate and false memory in recognition tasks compared to recall tasks—often occurs in memory for word lists, too. Together these studies provide a window into processes of collective remembering, how groups of people (in this case, Americans) remember salient events of their group’s past: its leaders. They also show that the effects derived from studying artificial materials in the lab may generalize more widely to other sorts of material with a different type of memory test