Answering Survey Questions: The Role of Memory

Abstract

Many survey questions make more than neglegible demands on the respondent's memory. Not only do they tap semantic knowledge (required to understand what the interviewer is saying), or "world knowledge" (e.g., who is President), but they draw on episodic or biographical memory as well. "When did you last visit a medical doctor?" asks for a date, which usually has to be supplied from memory - not from a notebook where most people write dates down so that they do not have to bother their memory with them. A similar question from the US National Health Interview Survey is even harder, although it only asks for an approximate answer: "During the past 12 months, about how many times did you see or talk to a medical doctor?" Ideally, the respondent should skim through memory as though it were a calendar, picking relevant episodes, and estimating the one-year span. Obviously, real respondents just cannot do that without making errors, although they try. Most try a "past-to-present" strategy, which seems the second best way to get accurate results (Fathi, Schooler, & Loftus, 1984).