Erika landed a job as an analyst for a small marketing research firm whose task was to observe and probe patient behaviours at a small suburban clinic.In her study,she noticed that many of the patients had a tendency to underestimate the time since their last doctor visit.The memory lapse she observed was due to a memory problem called ________.
A) omitting
B) averaging
C) telescoping
D) normalising

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Telescoping is a memory distortion in which events are either shifted forward in time or backward in time. In this case, patients were underestimating the time since their last doctor visit, which indicates that they were telescoping their memory and perceiving the visit to have occurred more recently than it actually did. Thus, option C is the best fit. Omitting, averaging, and normalizing do not accurately describe the memory distortion observed by Erika.

Erika Landed a Job as an Analyst for a Small