For example, nowadays the culture in the 70s was pretty different from the culture in the 80s. Whether it be the way people dressed, the type of music most people liked, etc. Or maybe if we want to look on a bigger scale than decades, the difference between 1950 and 2000 is clearly pretty substantial.
But when we look back on history, usually we don't really think about it on such a small scale and I never even considered the possibility that maybe in 1660 the fashion might have completely changed by the mid 1670s. I just hear "1600s" and have one rough idea of what the culture was like and assume it is (relatively) consistent throughout the century.
But on the other end - I have heard that equating future with change is a fairly recent concept in society, and in the past people often thought of the future as being much of the same. So were they right in thinking that? Or was there actually pretty substantial changes in short periods like there are nowadays, but it's just not as well documented or discussed.
This isn't answerable in a "throughout history" sense - there's just too many thousands of years for which we don't have enough of the kind of detailed, firmly dated records of popular culture we need to track these changes. But relatively more recently, yes, change happened at a faster rate than the layman who doesn't study, say, fashion realizes.
For instance, to continue with the 17th century -
Portrait of an Unknown Lady, by Marcus Gheeraerts the younger, 1609: Fashion is similar to the late 16th century, with a long, pointed waist; long, fitted sleeves; a wheel farthingale holding out the skirt at the top; a flat ruff; a high, rounded hairstyle; decorative hanging sleeves.
A Lady of the Spencer Family, by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, 1633-38: Quite a change. The waist is high and not tight; full, elbow-length sleeves; falling collar around a deep squared neckline; no skirt support; more natural hairstyle with wisps around hairline.
Portrait of a Lady and a Boy, with Pan, by John Hayls, 1655-59: The waistline is low and pointed again, and the foundations are creating more of a shaped figure; the neckline is rounded and much wider; the hair is more styled, with the back worn up in a bun and the front hair on either side of the face curled in ringlets.
Girl of Quality in Winter Undress, by Nicholas Arnoult, 1685: Fashion embraced the mantua, a loose, kimono-like gown worn over a matching or contrasting petticoat; the sleeves are short and cuffed, allowing the sleeves of the shift (undergarment) to be seen, and the skirt is pulled back at the hips. The hairstyle is full and topped with a head-framing cap with long lace lappets.
Portrait of Marie Thérèse de Bourbon, princess of Conti, by Bonnart, ca. 1695: The mantua's sleeves are a little longer, covering the shift sleeves, which are fuller; the front edges of the bodice have contrasting robings attached that sort of match the narrow cuffs and there's space between them, allowing the laced stays or a stomacher to be seen, decorated with a ribbon bow at the bust; the neckline is narrow and square. The hair is pulled back and the cap's volume is focused on top (this is called a fontange cap).
Some of these changes are very apparent, while some are subtle, but as you can see - there was a lot of change over the course of the century, and fashion historians can date artwork and extant garments from this period of time with some accuracy.
In many cases, the subtleties go unnoticed even by fashion historians for some time. (As more and more material is available digitally, books and fashion plates and extant garments, more subtleties are being noticed.) For instance, in her 1960s book Patterns of Fashion I, Janet Arnold dated a gown like this one (closed-front bodice with no stomacher; curved, elbow-length sleeves; back made in narrow pieces and with a point at the waist; many narrow pleats in the skirt) to 1770-1785, and a similar one like this (similar, but with the back cut in one long piece from neck to hem, pleated to fit the bodice at the center) to 1770-1780. The impression many historians and reenactors had was that fashion essentially moved by the decade. Now, however, we know that the closed-front bodice wasn't worn until the later 1770s, the pleated back persisted a little way into the 1780s, and the pieced back didn't come into fashion until the later 1780s.
There's been similar questions asked previously that might interest you whilst you wait for a specific answer to your question:
"What were different decades in the 1800s like?" - Asked 28/03/15
"People of our day and age can easily distinguish cultures via their decade. If we were living in the 1600s, 1700s, or 1800s, could we do the same?" - Asked 10/04/14
I'm sure there are many more interesting threads on this topic that I've missed out that you could find by using the term "decades" whilst you wait.
Thinking in the very long term (thousands and tens of thousands of years), there's a lot of current research by archaeologists and anthropologists on what affects the rate of change within a given society. The most robust finding so far is that is largely determined by the frequency of interactions between different people and thus, by extension, population density. So based on that theoretical expectation you would expect cultural change to be gradually pick up pace over time as global populations increased. This is borne out in the archaeological record at least as far as technological change is concerned; in prehistory and most of ancient history technological innovation happened at such a glacial pace that it definitely wouldn't have been perceptible by individuals. Whether prehistoric people also experienced great social change over their lifetimes is difficult to say with certainty, but theoretically it shouldn't be very different.