A new research published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology analysed the mind’s ability to see and store messages that one is exposed to on a daily basis via various visual media. For the study, the researchers took the famous and universal Apple logo and examined people’s ability to recall it.

In the press release, researchers state that the Apple logo was chosen because it has a wide reach, is recognized all over the world by people. People are exposed to the logo on a daily basis. Considering the fact that a logo or an object is seen every day and the awareness of it is very high, one would expect that a person’s ability to recall the logo would be high.

Drawing from previous researches, the authors in the press release stated that man’s memory can be very poor for items that he may be exposed to on a daily basis. This is because the brain most often “glosses” over the details and only takes in a gist without actually knowing the accurate details of the item. To further reconfirm this and to analyse the effect of constant exposure of an object on memory, an experiment was conducted.

For the experiment, a group of undergraduates who are both Mac and PC users were taken. They were asked to draw the Apple logo as they remembered it and then they were given eight alternatives of the logo from which they had to choose the right one. The release stated that the candidates’ confidence level was also measured both before and after the experiment. Surprisingly, only one out of 85 could actually recollect the accurate logo and less than 50 per cent were able to choose the right logo from the set of alternatives given to them. They also found that the confidence level of the candidates was 55 per cent higher after the experiment.

The study found that our memory is much poorer than we think it to be and it highlights out low “self-awareness to our own attention lapses.” The researchers state in the press release that this low recall ability can be attributed to attention saturation. They also state that increased exposure and familiarity does not affect memory.

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