How well do you think you remember your personal past? French validation of the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART) and exploration of age effect

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to validate a French version of the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART), a 21-item self-report questionnaire developed by Berntsen, D., Hoyle, R. H., & Rubin, D. C. (2019; The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART): A measure of individual differences in autobiographical memory. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 8(3), 305–318) examining the subjective quality people attribute to their autobiographical memories. It measures seven distinct but correlated dimensions of memories’ quality varying between individuals: vividness, narrative coherence, reliving, rehearsal, visual imagery, scene, and life-story relevance. 373 participants aged from 18 to 87 years old were invited to complete the questionnaire by rating on a 7-point Likert scale the degree to which they agree with each item. Demographic data and information about their perception of their memory functioning and satisfaction were also collected. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the initial seven-factor structure of the ART. Moreover, results showed desirable psychometric properties, with good internal consistency (.94) and test-retest reliability (.83). This scale was also correlated with participants’ perception of memory functioning in daily life. However, there was no correlation with age, confirming prior studies showing that the subjective quality of autobiographical memories does not decline with age. This study thus provides proof of the good psychometric properties of the French version of the ART and promotes its use to explore the subjective quality of autobiographical memories in clinical populations.

KEYWORDS:

• Autobiographical memory
• Recollective experience
• Subjective remembering
• Memory evaluation

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the University of Liège.

The authors wish to thank Pr. Dorthe Berntsen and Pr. David Rubin for their involvement in the back-translation process and for their comments on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Liège.