Bradburn N M, Rips L J, Shevell S K
Science. 1987 Apr 10;236(4798):157-61. doi: 10.1126/science.3563494.
Survey questions often probe respondents for quantitative facts about events in their past: "During the last 2 weeks, on days when you drank liquor, about how many drinks did you have?" "During the past 12 months, how many visits did you make to a dentist?" "When did you last work at a full-time job?" are all examples from national surveys. Although questions like these make an implicit demand to remember and enumerate specific autobiographical episodes, respondents frequently have trouble complying because of limits on their ability to recall. In these situations, respondents resort to inferences that use partial information from memory to construct a numeric answer. Results from cognitive psychology can be useful in understanding and investigating these phenomena. In particular, cognitive research can help in identifying situations that inhibit or facilitate recall and can reveal inferences that affect the accuracy of respondents' answers.
“在过去两周内，你喝酒的日子里，大约喝了多少杯？”“在过去12个月里，你去看了几次牙医？”“你最后一次从事全职工作是什么时候？”这些都是全国性调查中的例子。尽管这类问题隐含着要求受访者记住并列举特定的自传式事件，但由于他们回忆能力的限制，受访者常常难以照做。在这些情况下，受访者会借助从记忆中获取的部分信息进行推断，以构建一个数字答案。认知心理学的研究结果有助于理解和调查这些现象。特别是，认知研究有助于识别抑制或促进回忆的情况，并能揭示影响受访者答案准确性的推断。
