Abstract
We examine the extent to which retrieval from very long-term autobiographical memory is similar when participants are asked to retrieve from widely differing periods of time. Three groups of 20 participants were given 4 min to recall autobiographical events from the last 5 weeks, 5 months, or 5 years. Following recall, the participants dated their events. Similar retrieval rates, relative recency effects, and relative lag-recency effects were found, despite the fact that the considered time scales varied by a factor of 52. These data are broadly consistent with the principle of recency, the principle of contiguity (Howard & Kahana, 2002), and scale similarity in the rates of recall (Brown, Neath, & Chater, 2007; Maylor, Chater, & Brown, 2001). These findings are taken as support for models of memory that predict time scale similarity in retrieval, such as SIMPLE (Brown et al., 2007) and TCM (Howard & Kahana, 2002).
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Moreton, B.J., Ward, G. Time scale similarity and long-term memory for autobiographical events. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 17, 510–515 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.4.510
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.4.510