How the Memorability of Events Affects Frequency Judgments

摘要

Surveys often ask respondents to report the frequency of their everyday activities. For example, surveys administered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics ask respondents to report the number of expenditures they have made over the last three months, and the number of times they have looked for work in the past four weeks. The responses to these questions have widespread, social implications, and so understanding how they are formulated is valuable. Researchers have traditionally assumed that respondents recall specific episodes of a target behavior remembered as having occurred within the reference time period, and count up those episodes to produce a frequency report.