One of the methods that can be used to assess autobiographical memory, and therefore retrograde amnesia, is the Crovitz technique, based on the free association of words used by pioneers of psychology such as Galton and Jung. In this article we will analyze Crovitz’s method and the relationship between age and autobiographical memory.

What is the Crovitz technique? What does it consist of?

The Crovitz technique is a psychological test used to evaluate autobiographical memory , mainly in people with some kind of dementia. It was developed by Herbert F. Crovitz and Harold Schiffman in 1974; the authors relied on the method of free association of words, which had been created by Francis Galton and popularized by Carl Jung.

This simple test consists of presenting the test subject with a series of words. The person will have to relate a personal memory of any moment in his/her life which he/she associates with the word stimulus. Although it is complicated to carry out quantitative evaluations of the results, they can be useful to analyze the autobiographical memory in general.

The number and characteristics of the subject’s memories are compared with those of their normative group in order to detect signs of cognitive impairment, or to rule them out. In this sense, it is important to note that the quality of memory varies according to the age at which a particular memory was coded; we will discuss this below.

Although many experts defend the consistency of this technique, different studies have warned about the weaknesses of Crovitz’s technique. Beyond the difficulties related to the quantification of the results, it is known that certain types of words favour the recovery of memories with emotional content or of specific periods.

Developments in the Crovitz technique

Different authors have reconceptualized or perfected the technique created by Crovitz and Schiffman . For example, Robinson updated the method by specifying two instructions: “Think of an experience in your own life that this word reminds you of” and “Keep thinking until you remember a particular event associated with the word.

For her part, Karis carried out a procedure in which she instructed subjects to write down any memories that came to mind when reading the word stimulus, specifying that these could be very specific (“like having broken a window on a particular day”) or general (“like washing windows every Saturday morning”).

Memory according to coding age

Usually people remember well the events that have happened recently. The quality of memories decreases very sharply as we move backwards in the last year or so; the memory for previous events worsens more slowly from this point on.

Consequently, when the curve of memory according to the age of coding is represented graphically, we observe a sharp fall in the last months of life that finally takes the form of an asymptote. However, certain factors have obvious effects on the normal functioning of autobiographical memory.

Thus, the Crovitz technique and other similar methods may be useful for evaluating the presence of retrograde amnesia , which is defined as a great difficulty in remembering events that took place before a given brain injury, such as those typical of Korsakoff’s syndrome and dementias, especially Alzheimer’s.

Another striking fact is that older people, especially those who show signs of cognitive impairment, remember more about biographical events that occurred when they were between approximately 10 and 30 years old than in later years. This period has been called the “peak of reminiscence” .

History of the word association method

Francis Galton, considered one of the pioneers of statistics (and a strong advocate of controversial eugenic ideas), developed in the late nineteenth century a psychological assessment technique consisting of presenting words to a subject; the subject then verbalized one or two ideas related to the terms given by the evaluator.

While Galton did not use word association specifically to assess autobiographical memory, other authors adopted it for this and other purposes. The application made by the psychoanalyst Carl Jung as a method of analysis of the unconscious, inspired by Freudian free association (or “fundamental rule”), is especially famous.

The association of words has been used by psychologists belonging to very different branches of our science. Thus, in addition to the clinical uses that we have described, this method has received some attention from market researchers since it can help evaluate consumer reactions to slogans, brand names, etc.

Bibliographic references:

  • Crovitz, H. F. & Schiffman, H. (1974). Frequency of episic memories as a function of their age. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 4(5): 517-518.
  • Rubin, D. C. (1986). Autobiographical Memory. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.