REMEMBERING AND DATING PAST PRICES

Two studies investigated memory for past prices. In study 1, 50 West German residents estimated the previous year's prices for both general and specific items rather accurately, but overestimated those of fifteen years previously. These results indicate that misperception of past prices depends on the retention interval rather than the presence of a high rate of inflation. Study 2 asked 65 NZ respondents to date the occurrence of past price changes. Generally, recent price changes were dated too recently, and remote ones too remotely, a result similar to previous price results but dissimilar to those obtained from studies of dating past events, and indicating that biases in past price recall are not the outcome of centring bias. © 1991.