When researchers ask questions, respondents search their memory, retrieve thoughts, and provide them as responses. Sometimes respondents give the correct answer, but other times they give what they believe is the socially desirable response—whatever makes them look more favorable—or they may simply guess. Respondents may forget when reporting their past behavior, so human memory is also a source of response errors. When respondents have impaired memory or do not respond accurately, this is termed response error or faulty recall. Memory is subject to selective perception (noticing and remembering what we want to) and time compression (remembering events as being more recent than they actually were). Respondents sometimes use averaging to overcome memory retrieval problems, for example, telling the interviewer what is typically eaten for dinner on Sunday, rather than what was actually consumed on the previous Sunday