ABSTRACT
Many survey questions ask about how often events occurred within a specific time period, such as "How many times did you eat green vegetables in the last month?" and "What things have you done to find work during the last four weeks?" Thus, survey interviews present challenging demands on the respondent's cognitive processes, particularly on autobiographical memory (Hippler, Schwarz, & Sudman, 1987; labine, Straf, Tanur, & Tourangeau, 1984; Turner & Martin, 1984). In slightly over a decade, we have learned much about the cognitive processes respondents use to answer questions, how an interviewer's behavior affects respondents' answers, and how the respondent's behavior affects the interviewer's behavior (Converse & Presser, 1986; Groves, 1989; lobe & Mingay, 1989, 1991; lobe, Tourangeau, & Smith, 1993; Schwarz & Sudman, 1994). During this period, several models have been proposed that explain how respondents process information to derive answers to survey questions about topics involving autobiographical memory and attitudes.
