One of the most interesting areas of research in the study of event memory is a small set of diary studies. In one such study, a Dutch psychologist, Willem Wagener, recorded his day’s events everyday for six years, noting down:
Who was involved? What yes event was? Where it occurred? When it occurred?Wagener was hoping to discover which of these different bits of information the best retrieval cues were. At the conclusion of his study he reported that ‘what’ was the least effective (have you ever tried to remember an event on the basis of its approximate date?).
There is nothing particularly special about these types of information, however. Later, wirehair reanalyzed his data and found that most of the difference in the memo ability of these cues was due to their relative distinctiveness. Thus, the nature of the event is usually the most distinctive aspect of the event and the people involved and the location are usually more distinctive bits of information than the date or time of occurrence.
