My personal experience, after years as a courier on both upright, recumbent, and motorcycles is that I am more "visible" on a recumbent then the other options because I'm "weird" enough to make it into a drivers consciousness...
None of this is ofcourse scientifically relevant data.
It's strange that this is a meme, because my experience is the opposite: as a motorist, bicycles are the most visible things around. As a cyclist, I see cars react to me every time I'm close enough to them that it's relevant. They're clearly aware of me.
My theory is that cyclists become invisible in areas where the roads force them to mix with cars. Where I live, they rarely mix, so when they do, it's an unusual event that promotes itself to your attention.
Either way, it backs up the idea that weirdness counts for a lot.
In areas with separated bike lanes traffic mixing usually happens in slower speed areas. This greatly reduces the chance that a small vehicle like a bicycle gets lost in the saccades.
My personal experience, after years as a courier on both upright, recumbent, and motorcycles is that I am more "visible" on a recumbent then the other options because I'm "weird" enough to make it into a drivers consciousness...
None of this is ofcourse scientifically relevant data.