Understanding Human Memory for Where Using Experience Sampling Data
- Hyungwook Yim, School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
- Bree Wan Rong Ong, School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Benjamin Stone, School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Simon Dennis, School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
AbstractWe examined how people remember 'where' a certain event happened given the time and date of the event (i.e., memory for where). We especially focused on the kinds of information people use when trying to retrieve their memory for where. In order to increase ecological validity, we used experience sampling technology. In the task, participants watched a video that depicted a 3rd person's life for a month period, which was generated by using the 3rd person's experience sampling data. Then, participants were cued with a certain time and were asked where the person was at that time as well as how confident they were with their response. Using a conditional logit model, we found that, temporal and spatial distances were the main predictors of participants' choice. We also found that generic knowledge about one's life and repeating events (or locations) also affect participants retrieval of memory for where.