The frequency and affective character of childhood memories.

Waldfogel, Samuel

doi:10.1037/h0093581

Cited by 177 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…This and subsequent such surveys (e.g., Dudycha & Dudycha, 1933a, 1933bHenri & Henri, 1895, 1896, 1898Kihlstrom & Harackiewicz, 1982) have produced one of the most consistent and robust findings in the psychological literature, namely, that the average age of earliest memory among adults in Western cultures is age 3 to 4 years (see, e.g., Wang, 2006Wang, , 2014, for discussions of crosscultural differences in average age of earliest memory). Moreover, the same average age of earliest memory is found whether the source of data is a survey, free recall (e.g., Bauer et al, in press;Waldfogel, 1948;Weigle & Bauer, 2000;West & Bauer, 1999), or response to a cue word prompt (e.g., Rubin & Schulkind, 1997; though see Wang, Conway, & Hou, 2004, for evidence that repeated probes can produce earlier estimates). The effect also is impervious to age-cohort effects: the same general pattern is obtained from individuals 20 years of age at the time the memories are prompted and individuals 60 to 70 years of age at the time the memories are elicited (see, Rubin, 2000, for review), even though for older adults, many more years have passed since childhood.…”

Section: Average Age Of Earliest Memorymentioning

confidence: 73%

The psychology of intelligence analysis: Drivers of prediction accuracy in world politics.

Mellers¹,

Stone²,

Atanasov³

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

137

130

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This article extends psychological methods and concepts into a domain that is as profoundly consequential as it is poorly understood: intelligence analysis. We report findings from a geopolitical forecasting tournament that assessed the accuracy of more than 150,000 forecasts of 743 participants on 199 events occurring over 2 years. Participants were above average in intelligence and political knowledge relative to the general population. Individual differences in performance emerged, and forecasting skills were surprisingly consistent over time. Key predictors were (a) dispositional variables of cognitive ability, political knowledge, and openmindedness; (b) situational variables of training in probabilistic reasoning and participation in collaborative teams that shared information and discussed rationales (Mellers, Ungar, et al., 2014); and (c) behavioral variables of deliberation time and frequency of belief updating. We developed a profile of the best forecasters; they were better at inductive reasoning, pattern detection, cognitive flexibility, and open-mindedness. They had greater understanding of geopolitics, training in probabilistic reasoning, and opportunities to succeed in cognitively enriched team environments. Last but not least, they viewed forecasting as a skill that required deliberate practice, sustained effort, and constant monitoring of current affairs. A t APA, we understand how challenging it can be for you to stay abreast of the latest and best academic research on psychology. Disciplines Finance and Financial Management | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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Section: Average Age Of Earliest Memorymentioning

confidence: 73%

The psychology of intelligence analysis: Drivers of prediction accuracy in world politics.

Mellers¹,

Stone²,

Atanasov³

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

137

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…(For reviews of this early literature, see Dudycha & Dudycha , 1941;Matlin & Stang , 1978;Waldfogel, 1948. ) This conception of memory implies that positive affect will lead to richer and fuller memories than negative affect ; this is, of course, contradicted by our data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The quantity, not the quality, of affect predicts memory vividness

Reisberg

Heuer

McLean

et al. 1988

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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Vivid or detailed memories are reliably associated with the recollection of emotional events. However, the mechanism through which emotionality has this impact remains unspecified. Our results indicate that the character of the emotion does not influence memory vividness; instead, vividness seems to be dependent only on the quantity of emotion that accompanies the event.We consider the implications of this for accounts of emotion 's effects.

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“…It is common in studies of childhood amnesia to ask subjects to recall all autobiographical memories they can from before a certain age, such as from before they were 8 years old (Crovitz & Quina-Holland, 1976;Waldfogel, 1948). In such studies, large reverse telescoping effects should be expected because (1) intrusions can only come from more recent events, not from before birth; (2) there are many more memories from recent years than there are from childhood amnesia years; and (3) the coherent time-line needed to date such events is especially weak for the period near birth.…”

Section: The Accuracy Of Dating Cued Autobiographical Memoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Telescoping is not time compression: A model

1989

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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.Telescoping occurs when people respond with an overestimate when asked questions such as how many times they have visited the doctor during the past 6 months or how often in the past 2 weeks they have purchased a particular product (Bradburn, Rips, & Shevell, 1985;Loftus & Marburger, 1983;Sudman & Bradburn, 1973;Thompson, Skowronski, & Lee, 1988). The phenomenon is called telescoping, because it is as if time shrinks to the present, in a temporal equivalent to the shrinking of distance that occurs when an object is viewed through a telescope. Such shrinking should cause events with actual dates before the target period to be recollected as if they had taken place within the target period. Here we will show that telescoping is a result of the way the question is asked rather than a result of the compression of time.Note that no measure of time distortion is taken in survey questions that ask for frequency of occurrence in an interval. In fact, survey researchers have long noted overestimation of frequency caused by items being imported into a category when time is not involved. Mahalanobis (1946) 1 to 3 to 12 to 16 ft on a side, the estimated yield, in pounds per acre, decreased from 1,160 to 535 to 428 to 395. Similar effects were noted for rice and wheat. Mahalanobis's first hypothesis was that jute immediately outside the boundary was telescoped in for purposes of the count. In fact, the telescoping of crops near the boundary of plots did not explain the systematic biases that Mahalanobis noted; nonetheless, the observation and theory was the initial impetus for our investigation. It is plausible that in trying to answer correctly, people might have included events or plants that were near the boundary. If the question had been worded, "How many times in the last month did you , , . ," then only events older than the interval could have been imported, because events more recent than the interval would have been in the future; a systematic telescoping erro...

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The frequency and affective character of childhood memories.

Cited by 177 publications

References 7 publications

The psychology of intelligence analysis: Drivers of prediction accuracy in world politics.

The psychology of intelligence analysis: Drivers of prediction accuracy in world politics.

The quantity, not the quality, of affect predicts memory vividness

Telescoping is not time compression: A model

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