Abstract
A model of telescoping is proposed that assumes no systematic errors in dating. Rather, the overestimation of recent occurrences of events is based on the combination of three factors: (1) Retention is greater for recent events; (2) errors in dating, though unbiased, increase linearly with the time since the dated event; and (3) intrusions often occur from events outside the period being asked about, but such intrusions do not come from events that have not yet occurred. In Experiment 1, we found that recall for colloquia fell markedly over a 2-year interval, the magnitude of errors in psychologists- dating of the colloquia increased at a rate of .4 days per day of delay, and the direction of the dating error was toward the middle of the interval. In Experiment 2, the model used the retention function and dating errors from the first study to predict the distribution of the actual dates of colloquia recalled as being within a 5-month period. In Experiment 3, the findings of the first study were replicated with colloquia given by, instead of for, the subjects.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baddeley, A. D., Lewis, V., &Nimmo-Smith, I. (1978). When did you last..? In M. M. Gruneberg, P. E. Moms, & R. N. Sykes (Eds.),Practical aspects ofmemory (pp. 77–83). London: Academic Press.
Bahrick, H. P. (1984). Semantic memory content in permastore: Fifty years of memory for Spanish learned in school.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,113, 1–29.
Bradburn, N. M., Rips, L. J., &Shevell, S. K. (1985). Answering autobiographical questions: The impact of memory and inference on surveys.Science,236, 158–161.
Brown, N. R., Rips, L. J., &Shevell, S. K. (1985). The subjective dates of natural events in very-long-term memory.Cognitive Psychology,17, 139–177.
Brown, N. R., Shevell, S. K., &Rips, L. J. (1986). Public memories and their personal context. In D. C. Rubin (Ed.),Autobiographical memory (pp. 137–158). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
Crovitz, H. F., &Quina-Holland, K. (1976). Proportion of episodic memories from early childhood by years of age.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,7, 61–62.
Crovitz, H. F., &Schiffman, H. (1974). Frequency of episodic memories as a function of their age.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,4, 517–518.
Huttenlocher, J., Hedges, L., &Prohaska, V. (1988). Hierarchical organization in ordered domains: Estimating the dates of events.Psychological Review,95, 471–484.
Larsen, S. F. (1988). Remembering without experiencing: Memory for reported events. In U. Neisser & E. Winograd (Eds.),Remembering reconsidered: Ecological and traditional approaches to the study of memory (pp. 326–355). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Linton, M. (1975). Memory for real-world events. In D. A. Norman & D.E. Rumelhart (Eds.),Explorations in cognition (pp.376–404). San Francisco: Freeman.
Linton, M. (1986). Ways of searching and the contents of autobiographical memory. In D. C. Rubin (Ed.),Autobiographical memory (pp. 50–62). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Loftus, E. F., &Marburger, W. (1983). Since the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, has anyone beaten you up? Improving the accuracy of retrospective reports with landmark events.Memory & Cognition,11, 114–120.
Mahalanobis, P. C. (1946). Recent experiments in statistical sampling in the Indian Statistical Institute.Journal of the Royal Statistical Society,109, 326–370.
Robinson, J. A. (1986). Temporal reference systems and autobiographical memory. In D. C. Rubin (Ed.),Autobiographical memory (pp. 159–188). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Rubin, D. C. (1976). Frequency of occurrence as a psychophysical continuum: Weber's fraction, Ekman's fraction, range effects, and the phi-gamma hypothesis.Perception & Psychophysics,20, 327–330.
Rubin, D. C. (1982). On the retention function for autobiographical memory.Journal of Verbal Learning &Verbal Behavior,21, 21–38.
Rubin, D. C., Wetzler, S. E., &Nebes, R. D. (1986). Autobiographical memory across the adult lifespan. In D. C. Rubin (Ed.),Autobiographical memory (pp. 202–221). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Sudman, S., &Bradburn, N. M. (1973). Effects of time and memory factors on response in surveys.Journal of the American Statistical Association,63, 805–815.
Tanner, W. P., Jr., &Swets, J. A. (1954). A decision making theory of visual detection.Psychological Review,61, 401–409.
Thompson, C. P. (1982). Memory for unique personal events: The roommate study.Memory & Cognition,10, 324–332.
Thompson, C. P. (1985). Memory for unique personal events: Effects of pleasantness.Motivation & Emotion,9, 277–289.
Thompson, C. P., Skowronski, J. J., &Lee, D. J. (1988). Telescoping in dating naturally occurring events.Memory & Cognition,16, 461–468.
Wagenaar, W. A. (1986). My memory: A study of autobiographical memory over six years.Cognitive Psychology,18, 225–252.
Waldfogel, S. (1948). The frequency and affective character of childhood memories.Psychological Monographs,62 (No. 291), 1–39.
Wetzler, S.E., &Sweeney, J. A. (1986). Childhood amnesia: An empirical demonstration. In D. C. Rubin (Ed.),Autobiographical memory (pp. 191–201). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
White, R. T. (1982). Memory for personal events.Human Learning,1, 171–183.
Wickelgren, W. A. (1974). Single-trace fragility theory of memory dynamics.Memory & Cognition,2, 775–780.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Partial support was provided by NIA Grant AG04278 and a Cartell Fund Sabbatical Award.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rubin, D.C., Baddeley, A.D. Telescoping is not time compression: A model. Mem Cogn 17, 653–661 (1989). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202626
Received:
Accepted:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202626
