Danegeld remembered: taxing further the coin head illusion.

Two experiments studied memory for the appearance of a Danish 20 kroner coin. The coin bears the portrait of Queen Margrethe II in profile, facing to the right. Previous studies have examined memory for British coins, which similarly bear a right-facing portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. They have reve...

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Main Authors: Martin, M, Jones, G
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 1995
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author Martin, M
Jones, G
author_facet Martin, M
Jones, G
author_sort Martin, M
collection OXFORD
description Two experiments studied memory for the appearance of a Danish 20 kroner coin. The coin bears the portrait of Queen Margrethe II in profile, facing to the right. Previous studies have examined memory for British coins, which similarly bear a right-facing portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. They have revealed the occurrence of a mnemonic illusion, in that British people tend to believe the portrait faces left. This finding has been attributed to the occurrence of a joint coin-stamp schema. British stamps bear a left-facing profile of the Queen, and it is possible that information from the stamp predominates in the formation of the schema. In the case of Denmark, however, stamps bear a full-face portrait of the Queen. Nevertheless, the present experiments showed that the Coin Head Illusion is also found in Denmark. That is, the number of participants recalling the Queen's head as facing to the right was significantly below even the chance level of 50%. Further, this result occurred both for residents of Denmark and for visitors to Denmark. These findings suggest that the bias underlying the Coin Head Illusion may be a more general one than that envisaged by the joint coin-stamp schema hypothesis.
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spelling oxford-uuid:b2aa6b74-ac2c-4101-b2fd-d6905d06899c2022-03-27T04:13:14ZDanegeld remembered: taxing further the coin head illusion.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:b2aa6b74-ac2c-4101-b2fd-d6905d06899cEnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford1995Martin, MJones, GTwo experiments studied memory for the appearance of a Danish 20 kroner coin. The coin bears the portrait of Queen Margrethe II in profile, facing to the right. Previous studies have examined memory for British coins, which similarly bear a right-facing portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. They have revealed the occurrence of a mnemonic illusion, in that British people tend to believe the portrait faces left. This finding has been attributed to the occurrence of a joint coin-stamp schema. British stamps bear a left-facing profile of the Queen, and it is possible that information from the stamp predominates in the formation of the schema. In the case of Denmark, however, stamps bear a full-face portrait of the Queen. Nevertheless, the present experiments showed that the Coin Head Illusion is also found in Denmark. That is, the number of participants recalling the Queen's head as facing to the right was significantly below even the chance level of 50%. Further, this result occurred both for residents of Denmark and for visitors to Denmark. These findings suggest that the bias underlying the Coin Head Illusion may be a more general one than that envisaged by the joint coin-stamp schema hypothesis.
spellingShingle Martin, M
Jones, G
Danegeld remembered: taxing further the coin head illusion.
title Danegeld remembered: taxing further the coin head illusion.
title_full Danegeld remembered: taxing further the coin head illusion.
title_fullStr Danegeld remembered: taxing further the coin head illusion.
title_full_unstemmed Danegeld remembered: taxing further the coin head illusion.
title_short Danegeld remembered: taxing further the coin head illusion.
title_sort danegeld remembered taxing further the coin head illusion
work_keys_str_mv AT martinm danegeldrememberedtaxingfurtherthecoinheadillusion
AT jonesg danegeldrememberedtaxingfurtherthecoinheadillusion