Bridging naturalistic and laboratory assessment of memory: the Baycrest mask fit test

ABSTRACT

Autobiographical memory tests provide a naturalistic counterpoint to the artificiality of laboratory research methods, yet autobiographical events are uncontrolled and, in most cases, unverifiable. In this study, we capitalised on a scripted, complex naturalistic event – the mask fit test (MFT), a standardised procedure required of hospital employees – to bridge the gap between naturalistic and laboratory memory assessment. We created a test of recognition memory for the MFT and administered it to 135 hospital employees who had undertaken the MFT at various points over the past five years. Multivariate analysis revealed two dimensions defined by accuracy and response bias. Accuracy scores showed the expected relationship to encoding-test delay, supporting the validity of this measure. Relative to younger adults, older adults’ memory for this naturalistic event was better than would be predicted from the cognitive ageing literature, a result consistent with the notion that older adults’ memory performance is enhanced when stimuli are naturalistic and personally relevant. These results demonstrate that testing recognition memory for a scripted event is a viable method of studying autobiographical memory.

KEYWORDS:

• Long-term memory
• autobiographical memory
• assessment
• multiple correspondence analysis
• ecological validity

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants to BL from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP 62963 and the National Institutes of Health (RO1 MH076067). HA would like to acknowledge the support of an EURIAS fellowship at the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies (France), with the support of the European Union’s 7th Framework Program for research, and from funding from the French State managed by the “Agence Nationale de la Recherche (program: Investissements d’avenir, ANR-1 1 -LABX-0 0 2 7 -01 Labex RFIEA+)”. We would also like to thank members of the Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Department at Baycrest who contributed to this project. Specifically, former OH&S Director Margaret Cernigoj assisted with development of the project in its early stages, and former MFT administrators Robert Ferraro and Gaynor Leigh assisted with development of the questionnaire items.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Michael J. Armson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9465-0666

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Canadian Institutes of Health Research [grant number MOP-62963].