Retrieving autobiographical memories in autobiographical contexts: Are age-related differences in narrated episodic specificity present outside of the laboratory?

Abstract

The Autobiographical Interview, a method for evaluating detailed memory of real-world events, reliably detects differences in episodic specificity between young and cognitively normal older adults. The Autobiographical Interview was developed and has been implemented, in the context of in-person research. In-person research, however, was challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic and introduced the need for virtual cognitive testing. The present study examined whether the Autobiographical Interview translates to a virtual environment and replicates the age-associated reduction in episodic specificity. Cognitively unimpaired older adults (N=49) and young adults (N=54) were administered a virtual Autobiographical Interview through videoconference. Consistent with laboratory-based studies, older adults showed reduced episodic specificity, as reflected by fewer episodic or “internal” details and more “external” details (i.e., semantic, language-based details) relative to young adults. Additional features of memories gathered with the virtual Autobiographical Interview, and age-related differences, were consistent with laboratory findings. The Autobiographical Interview, despite being developed in the laboratory, appears to translate to a virtual format as a measure of age-related differences in episodic specificity. These findings add promise to the use of virtual cognitive testing to improve the accessibility, participant diversity, scalability, and ecological validity of autobiographical memory research.

A novel scoring protocol reveals age-related differences in abstract compared to concrete thinking in cued autobiographical remembering

“…The first study is a secondary analysis of a dataset composed of 103 participants, including 54 young adults (mean age = 22.5 years, mean edu = 15.2 years, number of males = 12) and 49 older adults (mean age = 69.5 years, mean edu = 17.5 years, number of males = 13) who were asked to retrieve autobiographical memories 44 . Demographic and neuropsychological data are shown in Table 1.…”

“…Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all participants were seen via Zoom Health (see Hernandez et al 2023, submitted, for validity and applicability of the virtual Autobiographical Interview). There were no differences in the procedure of the Autobiographical Interview in person versus via Zoom, except that participants were at home during the interview.…”