Abstract
When people are questioned about past experiences, it is common for eventsto be reported as happening more recently than they actually did. One technique for reducing the instances of this “forward telescoping” is tested in the current research: It involves the provision of landmark events that can clearly mark the beginning of the reference period. Such atechnique was shown to reduce the telescoping problem in five experiments, involving 1, 694 subjects. The landmark event used in two of the studies was the first major eruption of Mt. St. Helens, and use of this event was shown to significantly reduce the incidence of forward telescoping of crime victimizations. Asking subjects to provide their own personal landmarks had similar beneficial effects. Finally, a more usual public landmark event, New Year’s day, substantially reduced forward telescoping. At least part, but not all, of the benefit of landmark events appears to be due to their being dated rather precisely.
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Reiss, A. J., Jr.Summary for victim reporting of series and nonseries incidents over time (Tech. Rep. 3). New Haven, Conn: Yale University, Analytical Studies in Victimization by Crime, June 1977.
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This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Bureau of Standards. The ideas for these experiments came after the seniorauthor’s participation in a workshop sponsored by the Bureau of the Census and theBureau of SocialScience Research.
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Loftus, E.F., Marburger, W. Since the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, has anyone beaten you up? Improving the accuracy of retrospective reports with landmarkevents. Mem Cogn 11, 114–120 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03213465
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03213465