1 

Recall Period in Consumer Expenditure Surveys Program 

Norman M Bradburn 

NORC/University of Chicago 

We cannot answer the question about optimum recall periods without understanding the 

cognitive processes that respondents go through in answering questions that require reporting 

past behavior. So before turning to the discussion questions, I will briefly describe a basic 

cognitive model of the question/answering process with particular attention to behavioral recall 

within a specified time period.

A Cognitive Framework

Answering questions in a survey involves considerable cognitive work on the part of respondents. 

Much of what underlies recent advances in understanding survey response processes derives from 

the application of models of information processing to the question-answering process.

The mind is conceptualized as a large information processing system composed of a series of 

component systems. The physical sensations of sound and sight enter the system in the sensory 

register (For a more complete description of this conceptualization see Rumelhart, 1977 or Lindsay 

and Norman, 1977). The sensory register has capacity limitations so that only a portion of the 

information is transferred to short-term memory. Attention plays a large role in determining what is 

brought into short-term memory. Attention is a function of an executive monitor that enables and 

controls the information processing system much the way that programs enable what computers do. 

The executive system controls the entire system though goals and plans that are organized into 

priorities for action. 

The storehouse of the system is the long-term memory system that has a very large capacity. 

Working memory refers to the system in which active thinking takes place. The activity here draws 

on short-term memory and retrievals from long-term memory. Short-term memory has limited 

capacity but rapid access, while long-term memory has large capacity but relatively slow access. 

Long-term memory appears to have two rather distinct subsystems, semantic memory and episodic 

memory (Tulving, 1983), although this distinction is not universally agreed upon. Semantic 

memory refers to memory associated with vocabulary, language structure, rules and abstract 

knowledge, while episodic memory refers to memory for events that took place in time and space. 

Information is represented as a list of features or concepts that are linked together in networks. 

Information is stored in memory in structures that are hierarchically organized with more general 

concepts being higher in the structure than more discrete instances of the concept or distinct 

features. The term “schema” is sometimes used to refer to larger, more complex shared and/or 
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overlearned structures that organize our thoughts on familiar topics and may be retrieved as a whole 

rather than as individual parts (Bartlett, 1932). 

Language is the medium through which information is primarily communicated and thus 

information, to be available for communication, must be associated with a linguistic code. The 

exact relationship between language and thought and whether or not all thoughts have verbal 

representation are still subjects of debate. It is clear, however, that meaning is encoded somehow in 

language and these codes play an important role in the acquisition, storage and retrieval of 

information. Emotion may also be part of the code, although its role is not well understood. 

Knowledge structures facilitate and constrain patterns of activation in the mind. What comes to 

mind, that is, into consciousness, is limited and is the result of the activation of the networks. 

Activation is rapid but goes along pathways determined by the ways information is encoded. 

Encoding puts information into particular categories and structures the pathways by which the 

information will be retrieved. Cues are stimuli that are related to the codes and stimulate the 

activation of the networks. Activation is rapid but does take time. The amount of time it takes for 

someone to respond to a stimulus (reaction time) is often used in research as a clue to the way 

information is coded (Bradburn, 2004). 

The Question-answering Process

There are number of models of the question-answering process (Cannell, Miller and Oksenberg, 

1981; Strack and Martin, 1987; Tourangeau and Rasinski, 1988; Sudman, Bradburn and Schwarz, 

1996) that, while differing in details, generally agree on a series of processes respondents go 

through in answering questions. The respondent must accomplish several tasks in responding to a 

survey question. The first task the respondent must undertake is to comprehend the question being 

asked. This entails both understanding in a literal sense what the consumer expenditure questions 

are asking, but may also be influenced by what the respondent thinks the interviewer wants to 

know. The context of the question can also influence the respondent’s understanding of the 

question. The next stage involves recalling information and computing a judgment. CEQ 

respondents must search memory for instances of the type of expenditures asked about. The 

recency of the purchase, whether it is a routine or an infrequent purchase and other factors will play 

a role in what is recalled. In addition, for some expenditures, the respondents may need to judge 

whether their experience fits the category. The next stage of the survey response process is 

formatting an answer, which involves finding the appropriate response alternative. Here the 

response categories may influence the amount of reporting (Schwarz and Hippler, 1991). The final 

stage of the response process involves editing of the response. It is here where factors such as the 

social desirability of the respondent’s answer, or perhaps the level of sensitivity of the expenditure, 

may influence the respondent’s decision on how to respond. 

To summarize: these processes are: 1) comprehending the meaning of the question; 2) retrieving 

relevant information; 3) formulating an answer; 4) formatting and editing the answer to meet the 

requirements of the interviewer and respondents self-presentation. While conceptually viewed as a 

linear sequence, it is recognized that in reality the processes occur in the flow of a conversation and 

that the different processes may go on in parallel or in rapid cycling back and forth. For purposes of 
3 

considering the question-answer process, it is useful to consider them as if they were separate and 

proceeded in an orderly sequence. (For a fuller explication of the framework see Sudman, Bradburn, 

& Schwarz, 1996, Chapter 3.) 

Retrieving Relevant Information 

The process that is most important for research on reference periods is that of information retrieval. 

Remembering is a process by which the memory storehouse is searched to retrieve a particular item 

that is being sought. If we think of memory as a big storehouse, it is clear that it must be organized 

in some way in order for us to be able to retrieve things from it. Just as we must label files when we 

put them in file drawers, so we must attach some kind of labels to information in the memory 

storehouse. The labeling process, often called “encoding,” refers to various aspects of the 

information or the experience, including emotional tone, attached to the item when we stored is it 

memory so that we can retrieve it. (For a more complete discussion of memory models see 

Tourangeau, Rips and Rasinski, 2000, Chapter 3). 

Information, such as the wording of the question and any explanatory material available to 

respondents at the time they are asked to recall an event, acts as retrieval cues. Retrieval cues are 

any words, images, emotions, etc. that activate or direct the memory search process. If retrieval 

cues do not specify the event type, e.g., a purchase, then the event types must be inferred before the 

search can begin. This inference can come from the wording of the question or from the larger 

context in which the question is asked, including the preceding questions or the introductory 

material to the survey. 

Retrieval is an active process that is facilitated by cues in the question. Cue lists are assumed to 

reduce survey measurement error in a number of ways (e.g., Tulving and Pearlstone, 1966; Hudson 

and Davis 1972; Bellezza and Hartwell, 1981). The presence of a cue list may aid the respondent at 

the comprehension stage in understanding the question and determining what should be included in 

the answer (Dashen & Fricker, 2001). Cues may also help respondents with retrieval and 

estimation, in which they recall the information needed to answer the question and decide whether 

the information is relevant to the question. Further, according to models of memory that describe 

memory as an associative network (e.g., Collins & Loftus, 1975), the mention of a particular 

example may activate memories of other, related events the respondent may have experienced. 

The effect of cue lists on recall has been addressed extensively in the psychological realm (for a 

review of the literature on cue effects and possible explanations see Nickerson, 1984). The results 

of some of these studies are somewhat counterintuitive to the notion that cues may help respondents 

answering a survey question. Instead of a facilitative effect of cues, inhibitory effects of cues have 

often been found. In experiments of part-set cuing effects, respondents hear lists of words and are 

asked to recall those words by writing them down on paper, sometimes with cues printed on the top 

of the answer sheet. Experiments may vary the category relatedness of the items on the list and the 

relatedness of the cues to the list items. For example, the cues may be the categories to which some 

of the words belong, or they may be a subset of the actual words from the list. The explanation for 

the inhibitory effect of cues is related to interference—when some items are primed, other items not 

primed may be more difficult to access.
4 

Another factor that may influence the effectiveness of cue lists on survey response is respondent 

characteristics. One characteristic that has been demonstrated to moderate data quality is the age of 

the respondent (e.g., Herzog & Rodgers, 1988). In a study demonstrating the inhibitory effects of 

providing a partial set of cues to recall in comparison to a free recall condition, the authors found 

that recall performance was impaired in the partial cue condition (Marsh et al., 2004). Older 

respondents showed even more impairment compared to younger respondents. 

 Because information, both in episodic and semantic memory, is encoded in many different ways, 

the cues in the question or in the context surrounding the question including previous questions, 

may facilitate or constrain the activation and produce better or less good retrieval. Tulving (1983) 

developed the idea of ‘encoding specificity” in which all of the aspects of events at the time of their 

occurrence, including, importantly, emotional states, get encoded in the representation of the event 

in memory. Retrieval is more likely to be successful the degree to which cues activate specific 

aspects of the coding. 

Retrieval takes time. One clear empirical finding is that giving respondents more time to answer 

questions produces more accurate reports, particularly for behavioral questions. But time is not all 

there is to it. Memories for events in one’s life appear to be organized in event sequences 

(Barsalou, 1988), for example, a shopping trip, which are hierarchically organized. Giving 

respondents cues to remind them about the sequence is more effective than trying to get them to 

retrieve information about a specific event. Examples are an important aid to recall, but they are not 

a panacea. Giving respondents of list of magazines that they might have read improves reports of 

reading; a list of organizational types helps respondents remember all the organizations they belong 

to. While examples may help reduce omissions, they have the effect also of being direct cues for 

memory and result in greater reports for the types of items on the list (Tucker, 1992; Smith, 1990). 

If an important type of activity or event is omitted from a list, the lack of a cue for that type of 

activity may result in underreporting. 

The CEQ asks respondents to report on expenditures that have occurred within a reference period. 

The length of the reference period will have an effect on the completeness and accuracy of the 

reports. One of the well-established regularities in psychology is that memory for an event is a 

partial function of time. The longer ago the event, the more difficult it is to remember. This is not a 

simple relationship, however, depending on many factors other than time that are not fully 

understood. For many years the shape of “forgetting curves” was thought be most like the 

Ebbinghaus ([1894] 1964) negatively accelerating curve. But more recent work indicates that 

forgetting curves vary by topic, may be nearly linear, may have quite shallow slopes, and may be on 

the scale of years rather than days (Bahrick, 1983; Wagenaar, 1986; Bradburn, Rips and Shevell, 

1987; Sudman et al., 1996; Tourangeau et al., 2000). When people experience many similar 

incidents, such as repeated purchase of common goods, recalling each event is more difficult than 

for a one-time event, such as buying a car. Initially distinguishable events may become confused or 

blended with later similar events into a schematic memory (Linton, 1975). 

Contextual Cues 
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Various contextual cues present in a survey can enhance recall accuracy by helping the respondent 

access information from memory. Contextual cues in a survey come from many sources. They 

come from the information a respondent may learn about the survey from advance materials such as 

letters or brochures, from the interviewer, and from the survey questionnaire itself. Of particular 

interest is the context that the survey introduction and question content provide. At the 

comprehension stage of the response process, a potential advantage of cues is to help respondents 

understand what the question is asking for (Schwarz & Hippler, 1991; Schuman & Presser, 1981). 

At the retrieval stage, prior questions provide a context that can make information more accessible 

for later questions (see for example, Tourangeau & Rasinski, 1988). This effect can be explained 

by priming models. In this type of model, memory may be viewed as a network of interconnected 

nodes. Activation of a node for one item, such as “coffee,” spreads to related nodes, such as for 

“tea” or “soda,” facilitating retrieval of the related item. 

Providing context through the use of cues and attitude questions can improve recall performance not 

only by priming the information to be recalled, but by providing respondents with additional time 

for processing. Time on task is highly related to improved reporting (Sudman, Bradburn, and 

Schwarz., 1996). Indeed, simply asking longer questions can give people more time to recall 

events, producing better data (Cannell, Oksenberg, & Converse, 1977; Bradburn, Sudman, and 

Associates, 1979). 

When thinking about retrieval, we mostly think about forgetting or failure to retrieve relevant 

information. Sometimes, however, incorrect information may be retrieved that results in 

overreporting behavior. The best-known example is the phenomenon observed by Neter and 

Waksberg (1964) called “telescoping”, that is, recalling events that took place at a time other than 

the time period asked about. Telescoping occurs in response to questions about behavior in defined 

time period such as: “How many times have you been to the doctor in the past 6 months?” Neter 

and Waksberg found in analyzing data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey that when 

respondents reported on purchases in different reference periods, there was a systematic 

overreporting of purchases that came from reporting purchases made in a previous period as if they 

had been purchased in the period being asked about. 

Rubin and Baddeley (1989) proposed a model to account for telescoping based on the dating of 

autobiographical events in calendar time. Huttenlocher, Hedges & Bradburn (1990) proposed a 

model to account for telescoping based on the dating of autobiographical events in terms of elapsed 

time from the present. The two models share the same general approach but differ in details because 

of their focus on how the events are represented in temporal memory. 

Both models assume there are no systematic errors in dating events (that is, dates associated with

events are stored in memory correctly) but rather that observed errors in reporting are the result of 

errors in the recall process. The observed telescoping errors that result in overreporting are caused 

by the combination of three independent factors. The first is the normal forgetting process. The 

second is that, even when events are remembered, errors in dating occur randomly and increase 

linearly with time. The third is that intrusions often occur from events outside the reference period, 
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but cannot occur from events that have not yet happened. In other words, intrusion occurs in only 

one direction—from the past forward (Huttenlocher, Hedges, & Bradburn, 1990). 

Telescoping can be reduced by “bounding,” that is reminding respondents of what they reported in 

the previous interview. The design of the CEQ, with its repeated interviews with the same 

household, reflects a concern for telescoping. With a longer reference period, the amount of 

telescoping will increase, because respondent uncertainty about when events happened becomes 

greater the further away from the present the event occurred (see Huttenlocher, Hedges, & 

Bradburn, 1990 for a full explanation of the phenomenon). Bounding may reduce the telescoping 

produced by the longer reference period but will not totally eliminate it. In an investigation of the 

effects of differing reference periods, one must be concerned both with forgetting and with 

telescoping. The optimum reference period is the point where the forgetting curve and the 

telescoping curves cross. (Sudman & Bradburn, 1974) 

Key Aspects of the Recall Period

As noted above, forgetting increases with time, but the shape of the forgetting curve differs for 

different types of events. The shape of curve can be thought of as an omission parameter. In 

general the parameter is influenced by the salience of the event. All else being equal, more frequent 

events are more salient to the respondent, so that the omission rate is lower on frequently purchased 

goods than on infrequently purchased durable goods. 

The questions in the CEQ concern not only expenditures but expenditures within a certain time 

period currently a three-month time period. As has been shown notably by Neter and Waksberg 

(1961, 1963, 1964) respondents may report events that lie outside the reference period. Although 

the shape of a telescoping curve has not been well studied for different types of events, it is likely 

that it will also vary with the type of event and the time period involved. Telescoping appears to 

behave in a reverse manner to omissions: the more frequent the event, the greater the likelihood of 

confusion about dates. Also, as Huttenlocher, Hedges, & Bradburn (1990) found, memory for many 

past events is not coded in calendar time but in elapsed time such a month ago, three-months ago, a 

year ago, etc. Further the size of the elapsed time interval to which an event is coded tends to 

increase with time. For more recent events it may be coded as the past week, 10 days ago, or twoweeks ago. For events are further back, the time may be coded as three-weeks, a month, a monthand-a-half, two-months, three-months, then 6-months, then a year. The changing size of the elapsed 

time categories affects the amount of telescoping. Thus one can think of a telescoping parameter 

which differs for different types of events. 

The trick is find the optimum recall period at which the omission parameter and the telescoping 

parameters intersect and the underreporting due to omissions balance out the over reporting due to 

telescoping, that is the point where the net relative error is minimized. Sudman and Bradburn 

(1973, 1974) present one model for estimating the net relative error due to omissions and 

telescoping:

 R.E. = ro (1+rt ) - 1 
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Where ro refers to the relative error due to omissions and rt 

A considerable amount of work on the relative errors for different types of consumer 

expenditures due to omission and telescoping was done by Sudman and Ferber in the 1960s 

(1970, 1971), but my impression is that there has been little empirical work done more recently 

that would enable us to estimate omission and telescoping parameters today. Such work would 

be necessary to determine the optimum recall periods for different types of consumer 

expenditures. 

refers to the relative error due to 

telescoping. 

Balancing Low Item-incidence Levels and Sample Size Requirements with a Short Recall 

Period.

There are two approaches to this problem: 1) vary the recall period for at least certain types of 

expenditures where there is evidence that the relative error due to omissions is small related to 

time and a longer recall period can produce acceptable levels of accuracy, e.g. large consumer 

durables, or 2) vary the sample size for low incidence items. Varying the recall period for low 

incidence items would appear to be the easiest from an operational point of view. But the 

omission parameter may not be the same for all low-incidence items. Some items of lowincidence but also low salience, e.g. a wedding present for the child of a friend, might well have 

a very steep forgetting curve and be omitted from reports if the recall period were long. Thus 

varying the recall period would need to be informed by good data on omission parameters for 

different types of low-incidence expenditures.

Varying the sample size for different types of expenditures is operationally more difficult and 

expensive. One possible approach using a short recall period would be to start with a very large 

sample that is used for the low-incidence items, and then use subsets to estimate medium and 

frequent expenditures. This approach would treat the CEQ as a family of independent samples 

that would use different questionnaires that covered expenditures of differing frequencies. For 

some purposes, e.g. for low incidence,, low salience events, all samples would be combined; for 

some purposes, e.g. medium frequency, moderate saliency events, several samples would be 

used; for frequent and very salient events, only one sample would be used. Obviously it would 

take considerable experimental work to be sure which sample size would be optimal for which 

type of expenditure. 

Other Tradeoffs

Some of the solutions to improving the quality of CEQ may require a more complex design of 

the CEQ involving both complex sample designs and multiple versions of the questionnaire. 

One trade off is between what might be an optimal design from a theoretical point of view and

operational and analytic difficulties. More complex designs require more interview training, 

more monitoring and extensive case management systems, and present more difficulties in 

constructing data files that can efficiently produce the tabulations needed for statistical reporting. 
8 

Some of the quality improvements brought about by a new design may be lost through errors 

introduced in the execution of the design. 

Best Practices for Determining the Recall Period for the Various Expenditure Categories.

The goal would be to select the recall period that minimizes the net relative error from both 

omission and telescoping. As noted above the shape of the forgetting curve appears to vary for 

different types of events, although it is almost always a decreasing function of time. (For an 

exception see Mathiowetz and Duncan, 1988). There does not appear to be any generalized 

knowledge about what types of events have different shaped curves, so some more empirical 

work is needed to determine the optimum recall periods for different categories of expenditures. 

There is enough known that it is clear that no single recall period will be optimal for all events. 

Sudman and Bradburn (1973) found that a negative exponential function of the form ae-bt

Best Practices for Grouping Questions Using Varying Recall Periods within a Survey

where 

t is the time since the event and a and b are constants, fit fairly well a variety of expenditure data. 

The value of b varies with expenditure types and must be determined empirically.

The goal in grouping questions is to minimize the cognitive effort for respondents to recall the 

requested information. As noted above, people organize memory as event sequences that are 

hierarchical. Thus grouping questions that tap into the same type of event sequences would aid 

recall. For example, grouping items that would be purchased on a shopping trip to a grocery store, 

to a clothing store, a pharmacy, etc. would be likely to improve the recall of similar items 

purchased. If certain types of expenditures are typical in distinct settings, grouping items by those 

settings, or at least cueing the setting in the body of the questions may improve recall. For example, 

in questions about alcohol consumption, giving examples of the kinds of situations in which one 

might drink increased consumption reports (Bradburn, Sudman & Associates, 1979). 

Although time is not a particularly good cue for recall, it is probably not a good idea to ask for 

expenditures in different recall periods for items that are grouped together in memory. If there are 

items that are similar in terms of the contexts in which they are purchased but have differing 

frequencies, it is better to separate questions about them into the appropriate recall period, and 

repeat the contextual cues within each recall period section of the questionnaire. 

Next Steps to Explore and Research Grouping Questions for Possible Change in CEQ 

Methods.

The literature on autobiographical memory is extensive and needs to be combed for the most 

relevant findings related to the types of questions used in the CEQ. Much of the literature leads to 

generalized principles that are not always consistent with the requirements of a large survey like the 

CEQ because they may require asking essentially the same questions in different formats or using 

different cues. A general finding is that the more time you give respondents, the more events they 

can recall, but surveys like the CEQ have to keep the length of the questionnaire to a minimum. 
9 

Using knowledge from psychology about cognitive processes, however, can lead to questionnaire 

that minimizes the cognitive burden on respondents and improve the quality of the data.

Some next steps would be: 1) do an intensive literature search to extract the major findings about 

context effects and recall of different types of events, particularly those related directly to consumer 

expenditures; 2) explore possible question groupings using cognitive methods as described in 

Sudman, Bradburn and Schwarz (1992); 3) formulate a set of hypotheses about way to group 

questions for most accurate recall; 4) conduct a set of experiments both in the laboratory and in the 

field so test out the hypotheses; 5) try out the best groupings resulting from these experiments in 

sizeable field tests to ascertain their operational feasibility. These steps would be best carried out 

by forming a team of survey methodologists, cognitive psychologists, and survey statisticians to 

conduct the research.

A Proposed Survey Design

The survey would consist of a set of conceptually separate surveys whose content was designed to 

optimize the organization of questions and the most appropriate recall period so as to produce the 

minimum net relative error from omissions and telescoping. The sample sizes would be determined 

by the desired level of precision for the CPI. As an example I would start with one survey that 

used a one-month recall period and another that used a three-month recall period. (If it were found 

that a 6-month recall period was appropriate for some large, salient items, a third survey could be 

used). The content of each survey would be questions about expenditures that have been found 

through experimentation to be best reported within the specified recall period. The questions would 

be about expenditures in that reference period. Questions in the three-month recall survey that asked 

for disaggregating expenditures over each of the three months would be eliminated or asked about 

in the one-month survey period. 

Questions about expenditures with low frequencies would be asked about in both surveys to 

increase sample size, and estimates for expenditures made by modeling the combination of data 

from the two sources. 

The surveys would be panel surveys so that bounding information from previous surveys could be 

used to reduce telescoping. Interviews would be conducted with each member of the household. 

Proxy information would be collected, but for expenditures that are age-related, I would develop 

model based estimates using the data reported by the age-appropriate respondents to weight the 

proxy reports.

The questionnaires would be organized by shopping venues or other event sequences that would 

create contextual cues to improve recall. Within such sequences, specific questions about 

expenditure categories necessary for the CPI would be asked. The format would have to allow for 

updating of expenditure reports if purchases are reported within some other sequences. Thus the 

questionnaire is more like a giant matrix with sequences as cues in the columns and expenditure 

categories in the rows. The respondents then are encouraged to use free recall expenditures within a 

venue, but then queried about specific categories not mentioned later in the interview. Respondents 

would be encouraged to consult records wherever possible. 
10

An Additional Issue

The CEQ is ultimately interested in expenditures for specific categories. In order to achieve this 

goal the respondents have to recall both that they bought something and how much they paid for it. 

The memory processes for these two different facts may not be the same. One may remember that 

one bought a toothbrush but not how much one paid for it. Memory for prices will vary from 

individual to individual and may be related to respondent characteristics such as income level, age, 

or personality characteristics. 

For something to be recalled it has to be encoded in memory. If it is never encoded, it cannot be 

recalled. For example, Lee, et al (1999) found that one reason mothers were bad at reporting the 

immunization status of their children was that many mothers never encoded the name of the various 

immunizations that their children were receiving and, hence, could not report them. One particular 

issue that needs to be investigated further is the degree to which the expenditures for particular 

items are in fact encoded in memory. 

This may be a growing problem as people pay for more things with credit cards. If one buys several 

things that belong to different categories, e.g. buys a miscellaneous basket of goods at the grocery 

store and pays for it with a credit card, one may not ever take in the separate prices for different 

things bought. This information would never be encoded in memory and could not be reported. If 

they did not even remember what all went into the basket of goods and there is no itemized record, 

there would not even be a way to impute prices or quantities.

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