Scale invariance in the retrieval of retrospective and prospective memories

How does memory retrieval depend on time scale? One strong hypothesis is th at such retrieval is scale-invariant (i.e., invariant across different time scales). To test this hypothesis, three groups of participants were given 4 min to recall what they did yesterday, last week, or last year (retrospec tive memories), and 4 min to recall what they intended to do tomorrow, next week, or next year (prospective memories). In line with scale invariance, retrieval performance was indistinguishable across time scales, for both re trospective and prospective memory. An additional finding was that signific antly more prospective memories were recalled than retrospective memories, confirming previous observations of the "intention-superiority effect" (Gos chke & Kuhl, 1993).