Retrieving autobiographical memories: Brazilian version of the Autobiographical Memory Test

Abstract

This study assessed the adequacy of the Brazilian version of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), a wellknown instrument used to investigate the overgeneralized autobiographical memories (difficulty to recover specific autobiographical memories). The AMT consists of a presentation of a set of cue-words with different emotional valence (positive, negative and neutral). The participants are requested to recover specific memories of his/her life story that relates to these words. In this study, the AMT was applied in 62 participants from low socio-economic status and schooling, which were divided into two groups, according to instructions received during the application of the test. The results indicated that the instructions given during the test influence the specificity of the memories retrieved. Taken together, the results concerning the specificity of memories are similar to those recorded in the international literature, suggesting that the Brazilian version of AMT can be used in research with people from low socio-economic and schooling. Keywords: Autobiographical memory; overgeneralized memories; adaptation.