The use of partial temporal information in dating personal events.

The use of different types of partial temporal information is shown to affect dating accuracy and the distribution of errors in event dating. Several different types of partial temporal information are discussed, but three are highlighted by the data. Specifically, subjects' dating error patterns suggest that they (1) use different types of within-week information, (2) use recalled event sequences, and (3) use boundary landmarks to report the dates of events. In general, these data suggest that although precise temporal information is sometimes represented in the memory trace for an event, more often the date-related information is inferred from other aspects of memory.