Do you remember the day of your graduation ceremony from junior high school?: A factor structure of the Memory Characteristics Questionnaire 1

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1 Japanese Psychological Research 2007, Volume 49, No. 4, doi: /j x Short Report Blackwell SHORT Factor structure REPORT Publishing of the Asia MCQ Do you remember the day of your graduation ceremony from junior high school?: A factor structure of the Memory Characteristics Questionnaire 1 MASANOBU TAKAHASHI 2,3 Department of Psychology, University of the Sacred Heart, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo , Japan HIROYUKI SHIMIZU Department of Psychology, Kobe Gakuin University, Nishi-ku, Kobe , Japan Abstract: Autobiographical memory refers to the recollection of experiences from an individual s life. Johnson, Foley, Suengas, and Raye (1988) developed a Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ) to examine several qualitative characteristics of autobiographical memories such as sensory, affective, and contextual details. In the present study, we attempted to determine the factor structure of the MCQ. We asked 1183 participants to rate actual autobiographical memories using the MCQ. On the basis of the factor analyses of the MCQ, we obtained eight factors: (a) clarity, (b) retrospective recollection, (c) time information, (d) overall impression, (e) sensory experiences, (f) spatial information, (g) bizarreness, and (h) events before and after. This factor structure is generally consistent with previous studies that have investigated the factor structure of the MCQ. Key words: Memory Characteristics Questionnaire, factor structure, autobiographical memory. Over the past two decades, there has been growing interest in autobiographical memory (see for a review, Conway, 2005; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). In the general sense, autobiographical memory refers to the recollection of experiences from an individual s life. Johnson and colleagues investigated the qualitative characteristics of autobiographical memories (Johnson, Foley, Suengas, & Raye, 1988; Suengas & Johnson, 1988). Johnson et al. (1988) developed a Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ) for use in examining various qualitative characteristics of autobiographical memories such as sensory, affective, and contextual details. The questionnaire includes 39 items and directs participants to indicate how much they were experiencing in the specific autobiographical event on a 7-point scale. Using the MCQ, participants were asked to rate their real autobiographical memories and imagined 1 This research was partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Japanese Scientific Research (No ), from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, to the first author. Portions of this research were presented at the 66th Annual Convention of Japanese Psychological Association, Hiroshima, September Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Masanobu Takahashi, Department of Psychology, University of the Sacred Heart, Hiroo 4-chome 3-1, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo , Japan. ( mtakahas@u-sacred-heart.ac.jp) 3 We thank Tomoyoshi Inoue, Atsuo Kawaguchi, Tetsuya Fujita, and Mika Ito, who helped conduct this research. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. This article was prepared, in part, while the first author was a visiting scholar in Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. The first author thanks Maryanne Garry for her warm and effective hospitality and for the intellectually stimulating environment Japanese Psychological Association. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

2 276 M. Takahashi and H. Shimizu events on various dimensions of qualitative characteristics. As a result, it was found that memories for real events contained more sensory and contextual details than those of imagined events. Subsequent studies also found that a participant s rating on an MCQ assessing various qualitative characteristics was much greater for memories for real events than for imagined events (Destun & Kuiper, 1999; Hashtroudi, Johnson, & Chrosniak, 1990; McGinnis & Roberts, 1996; Suengas & Johnson, 1988). Other researchers compared between emotional memories and memories of other experiences using the MCQ (Byrne, Hyman, & Scott, 2001; D Argembeau, Comblain, & van der Linden, 2003; Destun & Kuiper, 1999; Tromp, Koss, Figueredo, & Tharan, 1995). For example, Destun and Kuiper (1999) compared autobiographical memories for pleasant and stressful events using the MCQ. They found that pleasant events contained more detail than stressful events. The purpose of the present study is to determine the factor structure of the MCQ. Specifically, we required 1183 participants to rate specific autobiographical memories using the MCQ. In previous studies, participants have been asked to rather freely recollect actual events (D Argembeau et al., 2003; Destun & Kuiper, 1999; McGinnis & Roberts, 1996). However, such procedures are likely to lead to the events recalled generally tending to be very idiosyncratic across the participants. Because we want to avoid such idiosyncrasies, we asked participants to recall the same vivid event, that is, the day of their graduation ceremony from junior high school, and to rate it using the MCQ. This event, the ceremony to finish junior high school, is retained as a relatively remote (at least 3 years ago) but vivid memory, which is extremely easy to classify as a real personal experience (McGinnis & Roberts, 1996). Method Participants The participants were 1214 undergraduate students from the following 10 universities: University of the Sacred Heart (N = 50), Kobe Gakuin University (N = 264), Kinki Welfare University (N = 182), Doshisha University (N = 138), Kyoto Koka Women s University (N = 149), Kyoto Tachibana Women s University (N = 255), Tokyo Metropolitan University (N = 24), Osaka City University (N = 34), Kyusyu University (N = 19), and Nihon University (N = 80). These universities are located in one small and five large cities in Japan. All participants were native Japanese speakers and volunteered to participate. Data were collected between September 2001 and January Of all the participants, 31 were excluded from the following data analyses because they did not completely answer the questionnaire. Accordingly, the participants were 1183 undergraduate students (364 men, 811 women, and 8 unknown). Their ages (N = 1156) ranged from 18 to 35 years (M = 19.5, SD = 1.66). Questionnaire We translated the original 38 items and each scale (Johnson et al., 1988) into Japanese, which is shown in Table 1, except item 39 (i.e., About when did this event happen? ). The order in which the questions were asked was identical to that used in the original questionnaire (Johnson et al., 1988). The questionnaire was printed on both the front and back of a sheet of A4 paper. Procedure Participants were given a sheet of the MCQ and asked to judge the day of their graduation ceremony from junior high school in either their classroom setting or their home. No time limit was required to complete the MCQ, which typically took less than 10 min. After the completion of the MCQ, they were debriefed. Results The following analyses were performed using SPSS for Windows, Version 10. Internal consistency We computed Cronbach s alpha to assess the internal consistency of the MCQ. This was established by calculating the coefficient for

3 Factor structure of the MCQ 277 Table 1. Japanese version of the Memory Characteristics Questionnaire

4 278 M. Takahashi and H. Shimizu Table 2. Correlation matrix for the factors in the eight-factor solution (promax rotation) F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 Factor 1: Clarity Factor 2: Retrospective recollection Factor 3: Time information Factor 4: Overall impression Factor 5: Sensory experiences Factor 6: Spatial information Factor 7: Bizarreness 0.00 Factor 8: Events before and after the 38 items. The Cronbach s alpha was high (α = 0.93), showing good internal consistency within the questionnaire as a whole. Factor analysis To determine the factor structure, initial factor extraction was performed using principal components analysis, and a promax rotation was used because there was no special reason to expect an orthogonal solution. Using the criterion of an eigenvalue greater than 1.00, eight factors emerged that accounted for 58.5% of the variance. The correlations among the eight factors are shown in Table 2. All correlations varied between 0.00 and 0.63 with absolute values, but almost correlations were low to moderate. The questionnaire items, factors, and factor loadings are presented in Table 3. All factors have at least two items with loadings of 0.60 or greater. All items have a loading of approximately 0.40 or greater on at least one factor. On the basis of the theoretical assumption (Johnson et al., 1988) and the previous findings (McGinnis & Roberts, 1996; Sporer, 1997; Suengas & Johnson, 1988), we labeled each factor: (a) clarity (Factor 1: 10 items); (b) retrospective recollection (Factor 2: 9 items); (c) time information (Factor 3: 6 items); (d) overall impression (Factor 4: 3 items); (e) sensory experiences (Factor 5: 3 items); (f) spatial information (Factor 6: 2 items); (g) bizarreness (factor 7: 3 items); and (h) events before and after (Factor 8: 2 items). We also computed coefficients for each of the eight factors. The internal consistency of the subscales was higher for (a) clarity (α = 0.90), (b) retrospective recollection (α = 0.88), (c) time information (α = 0.69), (d) overall impression (α = 0.72), (e) sensory experiences (α = 0.74), (f) spatial information (α = 0.74), (g) bizarreness (α = 0.41), and (h) events before and after (α = 0.69). Discussion In the present study, we attempted to determine the factor structure of the MCQ. We obtained high internal consistency and eight factors: (a) clarity (Items 1 4, 8 11, 33, 36); (b) retrospective recollection (Items 25 27, 29 32, 37, 38); (c) time information (Items 17 22); (d) overall impression (Items 23, 24, 28); (e) sensory experiences (Items 5 7); (f) spatial information (Items 15, 16); (g) bizarreness (Items 12 14); and (h) events before and after (Items 34, 35). Suengas and Johnson (1988) compared a memory of a laboratory minievent (e.g., wrap a parcel) with that of an imagined minievent using a shortened version of the MCQ. That is, their factor analyses were based on 30 items (i.e., Items 1 17, 22 24, and 27 36). Although they obtained seven factors for actual events and six factors for imagined events, the factor structures for actual and imagined memories were very similar. Therefore, they formed five composite factors: clarity (e.g., visual detail, vividness, and event detail: Items 1, 3, 8 10, 33), sensory (sounds, smells, and taste: Items 4, 5, 7), contextual (memories for location and spatial arrangement of objects and people: Items 13, 15, 16), thoughts and feelings (memories for thoughts and feelings: Items 27, 31,

5 Factor structure of the MCQ 279 Table 3. Factor loadings for 38 items using principal components analysis with promax rotation Factors Item no. Abridged items Commonalities Factor 1: Clarity 8 Vividness Clarity Visual detail Event detail Color Overall memory Complexity Order of events Doubt/certainty Sound Factor 2: Retrospective recollection 37 Covert rehearsal Actual implications Seeming implications Self-revealing Overt rehearsal Felt intense Current intensity Remembered feeling Remembered thoughts Factor 3: Time information 18 Year Hour Day Time Season Event duration Factor 4: Overall impression 28 Felt (±) Tone (±) Participant Factor 5: Sensory experiences 5 Smell Taste Touch Factor 6: Spatial information 15 Objects (spatial) People (spatial)

6 280 M. Takahashi and H. Shimizu Table 3. (Continued) Factors Item no. Abridged items Commonalities Factor 7: Bizarreness 12 Realism Location Setting Factor 8: Events before and after 35 Event after Event before Eigenvalues Eigenvalue ratio (%) Note. Absolute values of loadings greater than 0.30 are indicated by bold type. 32), and intensity of feelings (how intense feelings were at the time of the event and how intense feelings are while remembering: Items 28 30). While the number of items that their factor analyses were based on is different from those of the present study, both are essentially similar results. Also, McGinnis and Roberts (1996) grouped the 30 items of the MCQ into a priori eight subscales based on Suengas and Johnson (1988): clarity (Items 1, 3, 8, 9, 33), sensory components (Items 4 7), contextual attributes (Items 13 16), time (Items 17 21), valence (Items 23, 28), thoughts and feelings (Items 25 27, 29, 31, 32), event before and after (Items 34, 35), and frequency of consideration (Items 37, 38). This grouping is consistent with the present data. Furthermore, Sporer and colleagues (Sporer & Hamilton, 1996; Sporer & Kuepper, 1994 cited in Sporer, 1997) similarly factor analyzed 35 items of the MCQ separately for true and invented stories. They found eight subscales on the basis of these factor analyses. The eight factors were clarity (Items 1, 3, 8 10, 33), sensory experiences (Items 2, 4 7), spatial information (Items 13 16), time information (Items 17 21), emotions and feelings (Items 24, 27, 29, 30, 32), reconstructability (Items 11, 25, 26, 36), realism (Item 12), and cognitive operations (Items 31, 34, 35, 37, 38). Their factor structure is generally consistent with the present data. In summary, most of the factor structures obtained in the present study are closely consistent with previous studies (McGinnis & Roberts, 1996; Sporer & Hamilton, 1996; Sporer & Kuepper, 1994; Suengas & Johnson, 1988), although there are some differences in the item content that consists of some factors. One reason for this discrepancy is that we used the original 38 items of the MCQ, whereas previous researchers used different versions of the MCQ. For example, in Suengas and Johnson (1988), reported analyses for their three experiments based on 30 items (i.e., Items 1 17, 22 24, and 27 36). In conclusion, we administered the original version of the MCQ to a large sample of undergraduate students and obtained a similar factor structure to that of previous researchers. As a final note, there were several limitations in the present study. First, we examined only measures of internal consistency and factor analysis but not test-retest reliability, and discriminant validity between actual and imagined events. Second, the present results of the factor analysis seem to be largely dependent on the present material because we had participants rate only one actual event. Third, the sample included only undergraduate students, and it remains unclear whether present results can be further generalized to other groups (e.g., older people). Future research will be needed to test the generality or stability of these findings.

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