Recognizing the Presidents: Was Alexander Hamilton President?

Abstract

Studies over the past 40 years have shown that Americans can recall about half the U.S. presidents. Do people know the presidents even though they are unable to access them for recall? We investigated this question using the powerful cues of a recognition test. Specifically, we tested the ability of 326 online subjects to recognize U.S. presidents when presented with their full names among various types of lures. The hit rate for presidential recognition was .88, well above the proportion produced in free recall but far from perfect. Presidents Franklin Pierce and Chester Arthur were recognized less than 60% of the time. Interestingly, four nonpresidents were falsely recognized at relatively high rates, and Alexander Hamilton was more frequently identified as president than were several actual presidents. Even on a recognition test, knowledge of American presidents is imperfect and prone to error. The false alarm data support the theory that false fame can arise from contextual familiarity.

Keywords: collective memory; false fame; familiarity; open data; open materials; presidents; recognition.