Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

The authors describe a model of autobiographical memory in which memories are transitory mental constructions within a self-memory system (SMS). The SMS contains an autobiographical knowledge base and current goals of the working self. Within the SMS, control processes modulate access to the knowledge base by successively shaping cues used to activate autobiographical memory knowledge structures and, in this way, form specific memories. The relation of the knowledge base to active goals is reciprocal, and the knowledge base "grounds" the goals of the working self. It is shown how this model can be used to draw together a wide range of diverse data from cognitive, social, developmental, personality, clinical, and neuropsychological autobiographical memory research.

The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system

Humans and animals make inferences about the world under limited time and knowledge. In contrast, many models of rational inference treat the mind as a Laplacean Demon, equipped with unlimited time, knowledge, and computational might. Following H. Simon's notion of satisficing, the authors have proposed a family of algorithms based on a simple psychological mechanism: onereason decision making. These fast and frugal algorithms violate fundamental tenets of classical rationality: They neither look up nor integrate all information. By computer simulation, the authors held a competition between the satisficing "Take The Best" algorithm and various "rational" inference procedures (e.g., multiple regression). The Take The Best algorithm matched or outperformed all competitors in inferential speed and accuracy. This result is an existence proof that cognitive mechanisms capable of successful performance in the real world do not need to satisfy the classical norms of rational inference.

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Reasoning the fast and frugal way: models of bounded rationality.

Is the mind, by design, predisposed against performing Bayesian inference? Previous research on base rate neglect suggests that the mind lacks the appropriate cognitive algorithms. However, any claim against the existence of an algorithm, Bayesian or otherwise, is impossible to evaluate unless one specifies the information format in which it is designed to operate. The authors show that Bayesian algorithms are computationally simpler in frequency formats than in the probability formats used in previous research. Frequency formats correspond to the sequential way information is acquired in natural sampling, from animal foraging to neural networks. By analyzing several thousand solutions to Bayesian problems, the authors found that when information was presented in frequency formats, statistically naive participants derived up to 50% of all inferences by Bayesian algorithms. Non-Bayesian algorithms included simple versions of Fisherian and Neyman-Pearsonian inference. Is the mind, by design, predisposed against performing Bayesian inference? The classical probabilists of the Enlightenment, including Condorcet, Poisson, and Laplace, equated probability theory with the common sense of educated people, who were known then as "hommes eclaires." Laplace (1814/ 1951) declared that "the theory of probability is at bottom nothing more than good sense reduced to a calculus which evaluates that which good minds know by a sort of instinct, without being able to explain how with precision" (p. 196). The available mathematical tools, in particular the theorems of Bayes and Bernoulli, were seen as descriptions of actual human judgment (Daston, 1981,1988). However, the years of political upheaval during the French Revolution prompted Laplace, unlike earlier writers such as Condorcet, to issue repeated disclaimers that probability theory, because of the interference of passion and desire, could not account for all relevant factors in human judgment. The Enlightenment view—that the laws of probability are the laws of the mind—moderated as it was through the French Revolution, had a profound influence on 19th- and 20th-century science. This view became the starting point for seminal contributions to mathematics, as when George Boole

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How to Improve Bayesian Reasoning Without Instruction: Frequency Formats

This survey of sexual practices in the United States has been combed by the media for items of interest to the public: monogamous sex is much more widespread in this country than has been thought; infidelity is less frequent than presumed; vaginal intercourse is the defining experience of heterosexual behavior; watching one's partner undress is stimulating to many people; married couples have more sex than single people (unmarried, cohabiting couples have the most sex of all); the majority of couples experience sex twice a week to several times a month; 2.8% of men identify themselves as homosexual and 1.4% of women do so, but a higher percentage of people consider a same-gender experience to have some appeal; 75% of men always experience orgasm compared with 28.6% of women, but more nearly equal numbers of men and women declare themselves satisfied with their sexual experiences. The book is, in fact, a

The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States

The Subjective Dates of Natural Events in Very-Long-Term Memory

A series of three studies examines potential consumer confusion associated with the advertising copy used to describe cause-related marketing (CRM) campaigns, where money is donated to a charity each time a consumer makes a purchase. The first study assesses the relative frequency of various copy formats in CRM on the Internet. The authors find that the majority of the copy formats (69.9%) are abstract (e.g., a portion of the proceeds will be donated), 25.6% are estimable (e.g., X% of the profits will be donated), and 4.5% are calculable (e.g., X% of the price will be donated). Subsequent studies find that (1) slight variations in abstract wording in advertising copy leads to considerable differences in consumers' estimates of the amount being donated, (2) the amount of the donation estimate for each abstract copy format varies considerably across individuals, and (3) the donation amount can impact choice. Taken together, the three studies demonstrate that the vast majority of advertising copy used to des...

On the prevalence and impact of vague quantifiers in the advertising of cause-related marketing (crm)

A series of five studies examine potential consumer confusion associated with the “percentage of profit” wording often used to describe cause-related marketing in which money is donated to a charity each time a consumer makes a purchase. The initial four studies demonstrate that (1) expressing the donation amount as a percentage of profit leads to widespread confusion and near universal overestimation of the amount being donated, (2) even consumers who have had formal accounting training are susceptible to this bias, (3) participant motivation in an experimental setting cannot account for these results, and (4) people report higher attitudes toward a company and express stronger purchase intentions as a function of the percentage value of the donation but not as a function of whether it is a percentage of profit or price. The authors conclude with a study that explores several potential affirmative disclosures for the percentage-of-profit problem.

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When Profit Equals Price: Consumer Confusion About Donation Amounts in Cause-Related Marketing

On surveys, men report two to four times as many lifetime opposite‐sex sexual partners (SPs) as women. However, these estimates should be equivalent because each new sexual partner for a man is also a new sexual partner for a woman. The source of this discrepancy was investigated in this study. Participants reported number of lifetime and past‐year SPs and estimation strategies. The pattern of lifetime estimates replicated. The lifetime protocols indicated that people used different estimation strategies, that people who used the same strategy produced similar estimates, that some strategies were associated with large estimates and others with small ones, and that men were more likely to use the former and women the latter. No sex differences in estimates or strategies were apparent in the past‐year protocols. Our findings suggest that discrepant lifetime partner reports occur because men and women rely on different estimation strategies, not because they intentionally misrepresent their sexual histories.

Estimating number of lifetime sexual partners: men and women do it differently.

A model of "historical memory" is proposed. This model identifies three primary levels of organization (the news event, the public narrative, the historical period) and allows public events to be associated with personal information. Three experiments were conducted to evaluate this model: a verbal protocol study, a response time study, and a free-association study. In accordance with the model, these studies demonstrated that (a) associations between same-narrative events tend to be stronger than other interevent associations, (b) political events are more likely to be related to accessible historical periods than are nonpolitical events, and (c) public events are often stored with accessible personal information. These studies also indicated that (d) political events are more likely than nonpolitical events to be embedded in public narratives and (e) nonpolitical events are more likely than political events to be associated with personal information.

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Norman R. Brown

Papers

The Subjective Dates of Natural Events in Very-Long-Term Memory

On the prevalence and impact of vague quantifiers in the advertising of cause-related marketing (crm)

When Profit Equals Price: Consumer Confusion About Donation Amounts in Cause-Related Marketing

Estimating number of lifetime sexual partners: men and women do it differently.

Organization of public events in long-term memory