Learning and Metamemory Failures Despite Extensive Experience

A number of studies has shown excellent recognition memory for pictures when participants are asked to remember what has been presented. This study explored unpractised memory for the English 5 note-an everyday item containing a great deal of pictorial information. Forty participants were asked to study a copy of the etching of the Rocket locomotive from the reverse side of the note. Of the participants 75% claimed never to have seen the image before, and were confident in their judgements. Further, participants were confident that experimenter claims about bank-note details were wrong. Results point to both dramatic memory failure, and to misrepresentations in memory. They provide a vivid demonstration of the failure of passive learning to encode information reliably, and the need for active learner engagement for effective recall.