Further consideration of the role of socio-economic status in memory performance

In his commentary, Richardson criticizes the analysis of the relationship b etween socioeconomic status (SES) and memory performance as presented by He rrmann and Guadagno (1997). Richardson's criticism addresses Herrmann and G uadagno's procedures for classifying economic backgrounds of subjects and t he statistics they used to analyze the effects of SES and memory. We believ e that all of these points are worth considering but suggest that it is too early in this research area to definitively settle on either (a) the best procedure for classifying SES or (b) the most effective statistical method for post-hoc analysis of memory data. The underlying issues are too complex and the number of investigations too few to argue that one procedure or me thod is right and the other wrong. Alternatively, Richardson's commentary a grees with ours in two important ways. Richardson's article and ours both a ssert that economic background is clearly a relevant variable in explaining memory performance. In addition, both articles recommend that memory and c ognitive researchers take account of economic well being in future memory r esearch. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.