Part 1:Individual Differences in Autobiographical Memory: The Autobiographical Recollection Test Predicts Ratings Of Specific Memories Across Cueing Conditions
Mar 15, 2022
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Individual Differences in Autobiographical Memory: The Autobiographical Recollection Test Predicts Ratings of Specific Memories Across Cueing Conditions
Tine B. Gehrt *
Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Aarhus University, Denmark Niels Peter Nielsen
Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Aarhus University, Denmark Rick H.Hoyle
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, USA David C. Rubin
Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Aarhus University, Denmark Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, USA Dorthe Berntsen
Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Aarhus University, Denmark
The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART; Berntsen et al,2019) measures individual differences in autobiographical memory. We here examined whether the ART correlates with characteristics of people's specific autobiographical memories. Participants (Ms >475)completed the ART and rated recollective qualities of autobiographical memories cued by words(Study). by positive and negative emotional valence (Study 2). and by future and past temporal direction (Study 3), Scores on the ART consistently correlated with recollective qualities of specific memories and future thoughts, both immediately and after a 1-week delay. The magnitude of these correlations was at the same level as the correlations between individual memory items, underscoring the ability of the ART, as a trait measure to predict ratings of individual memories. The findings support the construct validity of the ART and demonstrate that people's evaluation of their autobiographical memory, in general, is reliably related to how they remember specific events.
Keywords: Autobiographical memory, Individual differences, Rcollcive experience, Autobiographical Recollection Tes
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General Audience Summary
Autobiographical memory is the kind of memory that allows us to remember events in our past. People often claim their memory for their past is better or worse than the one of others. Some seem to remember their past vividly and as coherent stories, while for others, memories of their past may seem vague and fragmented. Until recently, the field was lacking a viable and easily administered tool for studying such individual differences. To meet this need, the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART)was introduced as a test of individual differences in the subjective experience of autobiographical memory. The ART has been shown to have good psychometric properties and thus is a reliable test of how people generally remember their past—for example, whether they generally consider their memories to be vivid and detailed. However, it remained to be tested if scores on the ART predict how people remember specific events from their past. In three studies, we examined this question by having participants complete the ART and rate characteristics of several specific memories from their past. We found a consistent association between scores on the ART and the characteristics of specific memories, even after a 1-week delay, The findings establish the validity of the ART and demonstrate the scale as a reliable indicator of how people experience their autobiographical memories. Because the ART is a valid, robust, and easily administered test of individual differences in autobiographical memory, it can help to integrate autobiographical memory research with fields generally concerned with measuring stable tendencies and preferences, such as personality, educational, and clinical psychology.
Autobiographical memory enables individuals to remember and consciously re-experience events from their past. It consists of several cognitive and emotional components, such as sensory information, imagery, narrative, and spatial knowledge, that shape the subjective experience of remembering past events, which has been key in understanding autobiographical memory (e.g., Brewer, 1986; Rubin, 2005, 2006; Tulving, 2002).
The recollective qualities of autobiographical memory are often examined in individual memories of events (e.g., Berntsen & Hall, 2004; Ford et al., 2012) or theoretically motivated categories of memories such as negative or recent events (e.g., D’Argembeau et al., 2003; Walker & Skowronski, 2009). Studies typically focus on differences between categories of memories, averaged across individuals, such as positive memories generally being recalled more vividly than negative memories (e.g., Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2013; Schaefer & Philippot, 2005). Few studies have examined individual differences in the recollective experience across different memories. Rubin et al. (2003) reported three studies in which undergraduates rated 15 or 30 word-cued autobiographical memories on a range of recollective qualities. Individuals who generally rated memories highly on one recollective quality also tended to give high ratings of other recollective qualities, suggesting a trait-like tendency (for similar findings, see Rubin & Siegler, 2004). Rubin et al. (2004) and Rubin (2021) had participants rate autobiographical memories on a variety of recollective qualities twice, separated by a delay. The recollective qualities were highly correlated even when compared for different memories assessed after delays. The stability of these ratings suggests stable individual differences in the experience of autobiographical memories. Rubin (2020a, b) showed that ratings of the ability to remember the scene of personal events strongly predicted ratings of reliving, vividness, belief, and emotional intensity on different sets of memories, indicating stable tendencies for individuals. Scene ratings also showed high test-retest correlations measured at periods of up to one month. These results add to other studies showing individual differences in the recollection of autobiographical memories (e.g., Ford et al., 2012; Greenberg & Knowlton, 2014; Rubin et al., 2019).
While earlier research indicates that examining individual differences in the recollective experience of autobiographical memory is viable and fruitful, the reviewed studies rely on ratings of specific memories, which can introduce bias. The memories are often cued (by event categories, words, sounds, etc.), and the cues themselves will introduce selection bias, but could also bring cultural and gender biases into play. Even when the cues are considered neutral, they might not be perceived as so by all individuals (for similar arguments, see Rubin, 2020b). Another option is to have participants self-select several memories, but this allows great variation in the selected events and could introduce variance attributable to other factors (e.g., properties of the events, demand characteristics) than individual differences in the recollective experience of autobiographical memory. Furthermore, having participants retrieve, describe, and rate several memories is time-consuming and could make the integration of individual differences in the recollective experience of autobiographical memoryless feasible within fields usually concerned with individual differences. To gain further insights into individual differences in the subjective experience of remembering past events, tests overcoming the reviewed shortcomings are needed. Recently, the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART; Berntsen et al., 2019), a psychometric test of individual differences in the recollective experience of autobiographical memory, was introduced to serve this purpose. The ART measures how well people think they remember events in their past. The higher individuals score on the ART, the more inclined they are to think they remember their past well. The focus of the ART is the recollective experience associated with memories in general, not how accurately people remember their past. The ART probes features of recollection that previous research has found important for individual memories, such as the amount of reliving or vividness accompanying the autobiographical memories. The key assumption underlying the test is that these characteristics generalize across memories within people and vary reliably between people (e.g., some people generally experience their autobiographical memories more vividly than other people). The ART does not require retrieval of specific memories, is easy to administer, and considers seven theoretically and empirically motivated recollective qualities: vividness, narrative coherence, reliving, rehearsal, scene, visual imagery, and life story relevance. Factor analyses of the ART demonstrated these recollective qualities to be separate but highly correlate components that were primarily attributable to one underlying second-order factor; that is, they form one unique underlying dimension of recollective experience varying between people (Berntsen et al., 2019). Berntsen et al. (2019) thus provided evidence that different components of recollective qualities measured by the ART were highly correlated and associated with one underlying second-order factor and that this factor showed reliable between-person variability and thus could be conceived as an individual differences dimension. However, Berntsen et al. (2019) did not provide evidence for the claim that a person’s score on the ART would reliably predict how this person remembers individual autobiographical events, such as the level of vividness and detail associated with individual memories. In short, the construct validity of the ART remains to be tested. This is the aim of the present series of studies.
The Present Studies
We examine correlations between individual differences in the recollective experience of autobiographical memory measured by the ART (Berntsen et al., 2019) and ratings of specific autobiographical memories and future events, either measured in the same session as the ART or after a delay. To ensure generalizability, the events are varied according to the cueing method. In Study 1, different sets of eight-word cues were used. In Study 2, four categories of events with a request for positive and four for negative emotional valence were used. In Study 3, four categories of events with a request for past and four with a request for future were used. We chose these categories of autobiographical memories and cueing methods because they are some of the most frequently used strategies for studying autobiographical memories and the related field of future thoughts (e.g., Crovitz & Schiffman, 1974; D’Argembeau, 2012; Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2013; Szpunar, 2010). The studies were preregistered with the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/z67cy/). In the final sample of each study, we aimed for 450–500 participants, randomly assigned to retrieving and rating memories either in the same session as the ART was administered or after a delay. Settings in the online recruitment platform prevented participants from taking part in more than one of these studies. We expected the ART (and the shorter Brief ART) to correlate positively with ratings of individual memories (or future events) on the seven autobiographical memory components captured by the ART: vividness, coherence, reliving, rehearsal, scene, visual imagery, and life story relevance of individual memories. In addition, we expected positive correlations with ratings of emotional intensity and belief in the occurrence of autobiographical events. We expected these correlations for all categories of events, both when they were rated in the same session as the ART and when they were retrieved and rated after a delay, although we expected reduced correlations in the latter case due to state-related variability (i.e., situational influences at the time of measurement affects the ratings, thereby producing a stronger association between variables measured at the same time compared to variables measured at different points in time; e.g., Steyer et al., 1999).
Study 1: Word Cued Memories
The use of word cues is a standard method to elicit a representative sample of an individual’s autobiographical memories (e.g., Crovitz & Schiffman, 1974; Rubin & Schulkind, 1997; for a review, see Congleton & Berntsen, 2018). To compare individual differences in how people think they remember past events against a broad sample of personal autobiographical memories, we examined correlations between the ART and ratings of autobiographical memories cued by words, retrieved either in the same session as the ART was administered or after a 1-week delay.
Method
Participants
Participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) using Cloud Research (Litman et al., 2017) were paid 2.00 USD for completing the study (participants completing the study with a delay were paid an additional 0.25 USD). Participants were automatically excluded from the study if they did not accept the informed consent form, indicated not being native English speakers, or failed either of the two attention checks. Participants completing all study measures (irrespective of delay) were excluded from the final sample if they (1) straight-lined responses to the ART items, (2) straight-lined ratings of four1 or more autobiographical memories, (3) completed the full study (i.e., all study measures, irrespective of delay) in 7 min or less, or (4) did not provide meaningful answers to open-ended questions. The fourth criterion was applied to the written descriptions of the autobiographical memories and included consistently giving answers suggesting automated form-fillers, survey bots or the like (e.g., “very nice,” “good,” or copy-pasting text from the Internet), or having misunderstood the task (e.g., describing the meaning of a cue word, providing personal semantics), or providing written descriptions in such poor English that the meaning was not clear. The final sample (for exclusion of participants, see Table 1) consisted of 475 participants (236 female, 3 other; mean age = 39.41, SD = 12.90, range: 18 to 76; mean years of education = 15.88, SD = 2.63, range: 4 to 25). Of these, 259 participants completed the study in one session, and 216 first completed the ART in one session and then retrieved autobiographical memories after a delay.
Materials
Individual differences in the recollective experience of personal memories were measured with the ART (Berntsen et al.,
2019), which consists of 21 items. The ART measures seven recollective qualities: vividness, narrative coherence, reliving, rehearsal, scene, visual imagery, and life story relevance. The Brief ART is an aggregate of the first seven items (one per recollective quality) of the ART. Items are scored from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The sum scores of the ART and Brief ART are divided by the number of items, giving each scale an aggregate score from 1-7. See Table 2 for internal consistencies (Cronbach’s Alpha). Autobiographical memories were retrieved about one of three sets of cue words, each consisting of eight words presented in a fixed order (Set 1: pencil, seat, custom, salad, green, ship, plant, street; Set 2: hammer, book, month, butter, paper, power, window, bowl; Set 3: table, person, moment, chair, door, city, engine, dress). The cue word sets did not differ (ps > .394) on word length or ratings of goodness, emotionality, emotional goodness, imagery, associative frequency, and familiarity (based on ratings in Rubin, 1980; Rubin & Friendly, 1986). Characteristics of the autobiographical memories were measured with single items from the Autobiographical MemoryQuestionnaire (AMQ; Rubin et al., 2003) as adopted in previous studies (e.g., Finnbogadóttir & Berntsen, 2014; Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2013). Seven of the AMQ items corresponded to the seven recollective qualities measured by the ART. The items of the AMQ are to be considered separately and not summed for a total score. For the adapted AMQ items and the verbal endpoints of their seven-point scales, see Table 3.
Procedure
The study was administered through the survey platform Qualtrics and was presented in the following order: (1) informed consent, (2) demographics, (3) ART, (4) a filler task consisting of 15 pictures from the Nencki Affective Picture System (Marchewka et al., 2014) that participants had to describe with one or two words, and (5) retrieval and rating of eight autobiographical memories. Participants were randomly assigned to retrieve memories about one of three sets of cue words. Approximately half of the participants had a 1-week delay before retrieving autobiographical memories. The study was introduced to participants as a memory writing task, and they were instructed that the retrieved memories had to be specific (i.e., have happened at a particular place and point in time) and were asked to provide one sentence describing each autobiographical memory (instructions adapted from Rubin & Schulkind, 1997). Participants had to complete two attention checks. The first attention check was a question with several response options that participants could only pass if choosing the correct answer, which was provided to them in the instructions. The second attention check consisted of two questions testing the participants’ understanding of the instructions for the retrieval of autobiographical memories.
Data Analysis
We created aggregate scores across the eight cue words and collapsed data from the three cue word sets in the final analyses. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 26 (IBM Corp., 2019). Correlations (Pearson’s r) were compared using the web application of color (http://comparingcorrelations. org/) using Steiger’s Z for dependent groups and Fisher’s Z for independent groups (Diedenhofen & Musch, 2015). All p-values are two-tailed and interpreted as statistically significant if < .05.
Results
Descriptive statistics for the ART and Brief ART are reported in Table 2. The ART and Brief ART were highly
correlated(r=.948, p<.001); therefore, only results for the full ART are reported in the correlational analyses(Tables 4 and 6). Means for the characteristics of the autobiographical memories are provided in Supplemental Material.
Manipulation Check
The written descriptions indicated that participants did retrieve autobiographical memories matching the presented cue words, and inspection of mean ratings of specificity indicated that participants did retrieve specific memories as requested. In line with previous studies, the word cued autobiographical memories were mildly positive(e.g., Berntsen &Hall.2004; Rubin et al.2011), and a relatively high percentage were memories of recent events (e.g., Crovitz & Schiffiman, 1974; Rubin & Schulkind,1997), with 38% of the retrieved memories having taken place within the past 12 months (range:0 to 320 days ago).
Correlations With Characteristics of Individual Memories
The ART correlated positively and significantly with ratings of memory characteristics corresponding to the seven components of the ART: vividness, coherence, reliving, rehearsal, scene, visual imagery, and life story relevance. Furthermore, the ART correlated positively with ratings of emotional intensity and belief in occurrence (Table 4).
The ART correlated more highly with ratings of memories retrieved in the same session as the ART compared to ratings of memories retrieved after a delay(Table 4). When statistically comparing these numerical differences, the ART correlated significantly higher with ratings of vividness, coherence, reliving, rehearsal, scene, and visual details (p range:.002 to .036)of memories retrieved in the same session as the ART compared to memories retrieved after a delay.
Summary and Discussion
The ART correlated positively with ratings of the characteristics of autobiographical memories retrieved in response to cue words. As expected, the ART correlated more highly with rat-ings of autobiographical memories retrieved in the same session as the ART than after a delay. Nonetheless, robust correlations were seen even over a 1-week delay. The findings demonstrate a consistent relationship between an individual's general experience of their autobiographical memory and the recollective qualities of a random sample of autobiographical memories.
Study 2:Positive and Negative Memories
In Study 1, the word cued autobiographical memories were mildly positive and relatively mundane, as would be expected The ART correlated more highly with ratings of memories retrieved in the same session as the ART compared to ratings of memories retrieved after a delay(Table 4). When statistically comparing these numerical differences, the ART correlated significantly higher with ratings of vividness, coherence, reliving, rehearsal, scene, and visual details (p range:.002 to .036)of memories retrieved in the same session as the ART compared to memories retrieved after a delay.
Summary and Discussion
The ART correlated positively with ratings of the characteristics of autobiographical memories retrieved in response to cue words. As expected, the ART correlated more highly with rat-ings of autobiographical memories retrieved in the same session as the ART than after a delay. Nonetheless, robust correlations were seen even over a 1-week delay. The findings demonstrate a consistent relationship between an individual's general experience of their autobiographical memory and the recollective qualities of a random sample of autobiographical memories.
Study 2:Positive and Negative Memories
In Study 1, the word cued autobiographical memories were mildly positive and relatively mundane, as would be expected from the literature (e.g., Berntsen & Hall, 2004; Rubin & Schulkind, 1997). However, emotional valence is a factor known to impact the recollective qualities of autobiographical memories (for a review, see Holland & Kensinger, 2010). Therefore, in Study 2, we examined correlations between the ART and participants’ ratings for highly positive and highly negative autobiographical memories. We predict that the ART will correlate in similar ways with ratings of both negative and positive autobiographical memories.
Method
Participants
Participants recruited from MTurk using Cloud Research (Litman et al., 2017) were paid 2.00 USD for completing the study (2.25 USD with a delay). Participants had to agree to the informed consent form, indicate being native English speakers, and pass two attention checks (equivalent to those of Study 1, but with response options adapted to Study 2). The sample had the same criteria for exclusion as Study 1 (for exclusion of participants, see Table 1). The final sample consisted of 486 participants (292 female, 1 other; mean age = 39.43, SD = 12.53, range: 16 to 84; mean years of education = 16.09, SD = 2.91, range: 4 to 29). Of these, 245 completed the study in one session, and 241 had a 1-week delay between the ART and retrieving autobiographical memories. Materials The ART (Berntsen et al., 2019) and single AMQ items (Rubin et al., 2003) were identical to Study 1. See Table 2 for internal consistencies of the ART and Brief ART.
Procedure
The procedure was identical to Study 1 except for the memory task, for which participants retrieved four negatives and four positive autobiographical memories. Participants were instructed to “Please think of a highly negative [positive] event in your past related to” (1) “school,” (2) “work,” (3) “a relationship with a family member,” and 4) “a relationship with someone you know well but who is not a family member” (instructions adapted from Rubin et al., 2019). Negative and positive autobiographical memories alternated, always starting each event category with a negative memory and ending with a positive memory. Participants were instructed to retrieve specific autobiographical memories (i.e., events that have happened at a particular place and point in time) and asked to provide one sentence describing each autobiographical memory. Approximately half of the participants had a 1-week delay before retrieving autobiographical memories.
Data Analysis
The analysis follows Study 1 except that aggregate scores across event categories for negative and positive autobiographical memories were analyzed separately. Cohen’s d reported for paired samples t-tests was controlled for the correlation between the two variables (e.g., Lakens, 2013). Data were analyzed using SPSS version 27 (IBM Corp., 2020).
