Abstract
Data from five laboratories using five different techniques were reanalyzed to measure subjects’ knowledge of events that occurred over the past 70 years. Subjects were about 20 years of age, so the measures included events that extended up to 50 years before birth. The functions relating knowledge about the events to age do not decrease precipitously at birth but gradually drop to above-chance levels. Techniques usually used to study retention within the individual can be used to study the persistence of ideas and fashions within an age cohort in a culture.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bartlett, F. C. (1932).Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. London: Cambridge University Press.
Botwinick, J., &Storandt, M. (1980). Recall and recognition of old information in relation to age and sex.Journal of Gerontology,35, 70–76.
Brewer, W. F. (1986). What is autobiographical memory? In D. C. Rubin (Ed.),Autobiographical memory (pp. 25–49). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Frisch, M. (1989). American history and the structure of collective memory: A modern exercise in empirical iconography.Journal of American History,75, 1130–1155.
Holbrook, M. B., &Schindler, R. M. (1989). Some exploratory findings on the development of musical tastes.Journal of Consumer Research,16, 119–124.
Larsen, S. F. (1988). Remembering without experiencing: Memory for reported events. In U. Neisser & E. Winograd (Eds.),Remembering reconsidered: Ecological and traditional approaches to the study of memory (pp. 326–355). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Neisser, U. (1982). Snapshots or benchmarks? In U. Neisser (Ed.),Memory observed (pp. 43–48). San Francisco: Freeman.
Roediger, H. L., III, &Crowder, R. G. (1976). A serial position effect in recall of United States presidents.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,8, 275–278.
Rubin, D. C. (1995).Memory in oral traditions: The cognitive psychology of epic, ballads, and counting-out rhymes. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rubin, D. C., Rahhal, T. A., &Poon, L. W. (1998). Things learned in early adulthood are remembered best.Memory & Cognition,26, 3–19.
Rubin, D. C., &Wenzel, A. E. (1996). One hundred years of forgetting: A quantitative description of retention.Psychological Review,103, 734–760.
Schuman, H., &Rieger, C. (1992). Collective memory and collective memories. In M. A. Conway, D. C. Rubin, H. Spinnler, & W. A. Wagenaar (Eds.),Theoretical perspectives on autobiographical memory (pp. 323–336). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Thelen, D. (1989). Memory and American history.Journal of American History,75, 1117–1129.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
I thank Erik Bergman and the editor for their help.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rubin, D.C. Knowledge and judgments about events that occurred prior to birth: The measurement of the persistence of information. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 5, 397–400 (1998). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208816
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208816