An associative theory of estimating past dates and past prices

The theory-a location theory, in W. J. Friedman's (1993) terminology-assumes that time information such as the date of an event is increasingly likely to become unavailable with passing time. The theory suggests that when people are asked to date events whose time is unknown, they find and supply time information for the most similar event and context for which it is available. Simulations of the dating process were compared with experimental results and produced similar patterns of error and bias. The theory is extended to explain errors and biases in how people estimate past prices.