Interviewing and Memory

Examination of information processing problems associated with decisions made during medical history interviewing, and links these decisions to the use of questionnaires with fixed-choice responses, addresses emergent conditions of interview settings.

Abstract

This paper examines information processing problems associated with decisions made during medical history interviewing, and links these decisions to the use of questionnaires with fixed-choice responses. In a medical history interview the physician's summary statement does not reveal the reasoning employed in posing questions and deciding that appropriate answers have been obtained. The use of self-contained stimulus questions with fixed response choices in sample surveys poses a similar problem. In survey research we need to clarify the reasoning attributed to the respondent, and the researcher's decision-making, in arriving at acceptable questions, answers and relationships among stipulated variables. These two strategies for obtaining information do not deal adequately with the emergent conditions of interview settings. The emergent conditions include spontaneous variations in the language used, several levels of semantic information processing, shifting definitions of the problem and a problematic use of stimulus questions. These conditions, seen as natural to all interviewing, will be addressed in this paper.