Spanish adaptation of the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART) and how Mild Cognitive Impairment perceive their past memories.

Múnera Martínez, Claudia MSc; Morgenstern, Camila MSc; Álvarez Cortina, Macarena MSc; Fernández Croce, Mora MSc; O’Neill, Santiago MD; Sierra Sanjurjo, Natalia PhD.

 

The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART) is a self-report questionnaire that measures individual differences in personal recollections accuracy.

The ART is a reliable tool to assess individual differences in autobiographical memory (AM). Its adaptation to Spanish could help explore AM in an accessible way.

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this study is to adapt the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART - Berntsen et al, 2019) into Spanish and to identify how Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)  patients and individuals with Subjective Cognitive Impairment (SCI) perceive the quality of their past memories.

METHODS

The ART administration instructions and all items were translated to Spanish using a forward and back-translation methodology. Two independent bilingual individuals (fluent in English and Spanish) supervised the translated items to ensure its linguistic and cultural accuracy.

42 MCI and 9 SCI completed the 21 ART items and were also asked to rate how they describe their remote and recent memory in general on a 10-point Likert scale.

RESULTS

No significant differences were found in age and years of education between groups. Significant differences between MCI patients and SCI group were found in three components: vividness (p=0,044), narrative coherence (p=0,039) and life story relevance (p=0,014).

MCI tends to obtain lower scores than SCI in the Full and Brief ART, and in scene and visual imagery, but no statistically significant.

SCI rate their recent memory significantly better than MCI (p=0,047). A positive correlation was found in MCI between Full and Brief ART and how people rate their remote memory (Full Scale r= .556 p<,001; Brief ART = .446 p<,01). 

CONCLUSIONS

The results showed that MCI patients test scores correlated with their perception of how good their memory is for past events. SCI group showed better perception of how vivid, relevant and coherent their general memories are. Future research will include a larger SCI sample.

REFERENCES

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. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0101839

Billet, M., Geurten, M. & Willems, S. (2023). How well do you think you remember your personal past? French validation of the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART) and exploration of age effect. Memory, 31:6, 864-870, DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2023.2207805

 

CONTACT

Email: cmartine@ffavaloro.org