How accurate are time-use reports? Effects of cognitive enhancement and cultural differences on recall accuracy

In order to assess the accuracy of time-use reports, 80 young adults were observed for 2-hour periods, and were interviewed about their activities by a different person the following day. Two experiments were performed. In the first, three different levels of cognitive enhancement were used to improve recall accuracy. Subjects were 60 California college students, 20 per group. In the second study the maximum enhancement condition was replicated with 20 Guatemalan subjects, similar in age, sex and level of education to the California subjects. Both the accuracy of their recall of specific activities, and the accuracy of their time-duration estimates were calculated. Results indicated that the enhancement conditions in Study 1 significantly increased both the number of activities recalled accurately (from 40 to 63 per cent) and the amount of time accurately recalled (from 58 to 70 per cent). In Study 2 the Guatemalans recalled 60 per cent of their activities accurately, and recalled as much time accurately as the Californians. The Guatemalans were significantly more likely to underestimate their time. In other words, when they made errors, these were almost always underestimations. Most of the recall error could be accounted for by forgetting an activity altogether, rather than by estimating its time inaccurately.

[1]  P. Killworth,et al.  Informant accuracy in social-network data V. An experimental attempt to predict actual communication from recall data☆ , 1982 .

[2]  B. Kiker,et al.  The Effect of Fertility on the Time Use of Working Wives , 1981 .

[3]  L. Hedges,et al.  Reports of elapsed time: bounding and rounding processes in estimation. , 1990 .

[4]  Allen Johnson.  Time Allocation in a Machiguenga Community , 1975 .

[5]  Richard C. Anderson,et al.  Recall of Previously Unrecallable Information Following a Shift in Perspective. Technical Report No. 41. , 1977 .

[6]  W. Butz,et al.  Methodological Issues in Collecting Time Use Data in Developing Countries. , 1981 .

[7]  E F Loftus,et al.  Since the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, has anyone beaten you up? Improving the accuracy of retrospective reports with landmarkevents , 1983, Memory & cognition.

[8]  Roger Tourangeau,et al.  Cognitive Aspects of Survey Methodology: Building a Bridge Between Disciplines. , 1987 .

[9]  A. Romney,et al.  The Construction of Primary Data in Cultural Anthropology , 1986, Current Anthropology.

[10]  Nancy L. Stein,et al.  Story structure versus content in children's recall , 1982 .

[11]  B. McSweeney.  Collection and analysis of data on rural women's time use. , 1979, Studies in family planning.

[12]  Larry V. Hedges,et al.  Hierarchical organization in ordered domains: Estimating the dates of events , 1988 .

[13]  P. Killworth,et al.  Informant Accuracy in Social Network Data , 1976 .

[14]  P. Killworth,et al.  The Problem of Informant Accuracy: The Validity of Retrospective Data , 1984 .

[15]  A. Baddeley,et al.  Context-dependent memory in two natural environments: on land and underwater. , 1975 .

[16]  R. D'Andrade.  Memory and the Assessment of Behavior , 1974 .

[17]  Kathryn E. Walker,et al.  Time use: A measure of household production of family goods and services , 1976 .

[18]  John Brown,et al.  Reciprocal facilitation and impairment of free recall , 1968 .

[19]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. , 1977 .

[20]  Robert E. Rhoades,et al.  Does Labor Time Decrease With Industrialization? A Survey of Time-Allocation Studies [and Comments and Reply] , 1980, Current Anthropology.

[21]  R. Tripp.  Time allocation in Northern Ghana: An example of the random visit method , 1982 .