Sf. Madey et T. Gilovich, EFFECT OF TEMPORAL FOCUS ON THE RECALL OF EXPECTANCY-CONSISTENT AND EXPECTANCY-INCONSISTENT INFORMATION, Journal of personality and social psychology, 65(3), 1993, pp. 458-468
This research examined the impact of temporal focus on the recall of i
nformation that is consistent or inconsistent with an expectation. A c
onsistent pattern of results across 4 experiments indicates that when
Ss' expectations are temporally unfocused, better memory for consisten
t information is observed. In contrast, when expectations are focused
in time-that is, Ss know when the relevant events are likely to occur-
recall for consistent and inconsistent information is more balanced. E
xperiment 4 tied these recall findings to the amount of processing dev
oted to consistent and inconsistent events. When expectations were tem
porally unfocused, processing time and recall was greater for the conf
irmatory information. When expectations were temporally focused, more
equivalent processing time and recall of consistent and inconsistent i
nformation was observed. Discussion centers on the role of temporal fo
cus as a determinant of whether an event is one-sided or two-sided.