A number of previous studies have demonstrated systematic misrememberi
ng of the direction in which the Queen's head faces on British coins.
Two experiments were carried out to investigate whether this phenomeno
n is affected by a person's handedness. In both experiments, right-han
ded and left-handed participants were found to differ significantly in
their verbal responses, with recall performance significantly worse t
han chance for right-handed but not for left-handed participants. Expe
riment 2 also examined degrees of handedness, and found significant va
riation in recall across the handedness range. Performance in this eve
ryday-memory paradigm appears to be determined by both handedness and
schema factors. It is proposed that although in this task the response
was a verbal one, relevant motor imagery may nevertheless have been a
ctivated and led to the highly unusual observation of an effect of han
dedness upon cognitive performance.