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Dating recent and historical events
Author(s) -
Kemp Simon
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.2350020304
Subject(s) - psychology , constructive , event (particle physics) , history , cognitive psychology , process (computing) , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , operating system
Subjects were asked to date 28 ‘recent’ public events that had occurred in the previous 7 years, and 28 ‘historical’ events that occurred between 1765 and 1947. For both kinds of event, the age of older events was underestimated and that of more recent events overestimated, a result agreeing with previous research. Whether the events were well or poorly known, as rated by a separate sample of subjects, affected the dating error of historical but not recent events. The results suggest that both recent and historical events are dated by a rather abstract, constructive process, rather than by cues relating to the age of the memory or the time of its formation.