Psychometric validation of the survey of autobiographical memory: confirmatory factor analysis and network analysis

Abstract

Autobiographical memory (AM) represents the ability to remember personal experiences. There are several laboratory or neuropsychological tasks to assess different aspects of memory function. However, there has been little research on self-reported AM ability. The Survey of Autobiographical Memory (SAM) is a self-report questionnaire, developed to assess individual differences in AM. Evidence for the factor structure and network properties of the SAM is still needed. Here, using an integral approach, we validated the SAM using a Multiple Correspondence Analysis (Study 1) as in the original study, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (Study 2), and a Network Analysis (Study 3) using two large independent samples (total n = 2896). We first replicated the original findings, then confirmed the existence of 4 factors and found that the Episodic and Semantic categories were the most central ones. Finally, we found between “groups” differences for Gender and Anxiety. Overall, three different methods revealed a robust profile of the SAM.