Validation of the French version of the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART) and exploration of aging on subjective quality of autobiographical memories

Retrieving autobiographical memories is not limited to the recollection of specific details of past experiences, people also make subjective judgments about how well they think they remember these memories. However, these subjective aspects of remembering are often limited or completely absent in traditional autobiographical memory evaluations. To resolve this issue, Berntsen et al. (2019) have recently introduced the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART), a self-report 21-item questionnaire examining the subjective quality people attribute to their autobiographical memories in general. More specifically, the ART measures seven distinct but correlated factors about memories’ quality varying between individuals: vividness, narrative coherence, reliving, rehearsal, visual imagery, scene, and life-story relevance.
Considering its clinical relevance, ease of administration, and desirable psychometric properties, this study aimed to validate a French version of the ART and test the effect of age. The French translation was obtained through a back-translation process. A sample of 295 participants aged from 18 to 82 years old was invited to complete the questionnaire online by rating on a 7-point Likert scale the degree to which they agree with each item (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). A subsample of 108 participants complete the questionnaire a second time after an average delay of 3 weeks. Demographic data and information about participants’ perception of their own global memory functioning and satisfaction were also collected before starting to complete the French ART items.
Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the initial seven-factor structure of the ART. Moreover, our results showed desirable psychometric properties, with good internal consistency (.95) and test-retest reliability (.83). This study thus provides proof of the good psychometric properties of the French version of the ART and promotes its use in clinical populations. Answers to the French ART were also correlated with subjects’ perception of memory functioning in daily life. Finally, this questionnaire and its different factors showed no correlation with age, confirming prior studies showing that the subjective quality of autobiographical memories does not decline with age.