Wj. Friedman et J. Huttenlocher, MEMORY FOR THE TIME OF 60-MINUTES STORIES AND NEWS EVENTS, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, 23(3), 1997, pp. 560-569
This study rested whether impressions of the temporal distances of pas
t events provide differentiated information about the times of events
from the past. months. Participants judged the times of stories from t
he television show ''60 Minutes'' that were not easily linked to conte
mporaneous events and, in a comparison condition, of news events, They
also compared the relative recency of pairs of ''60 Minutes'' stories
that had been broadcast the same week or during different weeks. Resu
lts showed that the times of ''60 Minutes'' stories could be different
iated if they fell within the past 1 to 2 months, but the times of old
er events were mainly undifferentiated, Memory for the temporal contig
uity of ''60 Minutes'' stories was also very pear. The times of news s
tories were accurate throughout the range of times. These findings pro
vide information about the time course over which distance information
is useful.