What Have you Done for me Lately? Release of Information and Strategic Manipulation of Memories

Abstract

How should a rational agent (politician/employee/advertiser) release information in order to manipulate the memory imperfections of his forgetful assessor (electorate/supervisor/consumer)? This article attempts to answer this question using a memory model based on the principles of recency, similarity and repetition. I show that the problem of a rational agent who releases information to a forgetful assessor can be modelled as a standard dynamic optimisation problem and we describe the properties of the optimal profile for releasing information. The theoretical results are applicable in a wide range of social and economic contexts, such as political campaigns, employee performance evaluations and advertising strategies.