# Personality and organizational strategies in episodic memory: The role of Openness to experience on recall and subjective organization in young and older adults

Florent Pinard, Sandrine Vanneste, Badiâa Bouazzaoui, Séverine Fay, Michel

Isingrini, Lucie Angel, Erika Borella, Laurence Taconnat

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Florent Pinard, Sandrine Vanneste, Badiâa Bouazzaoui, Séverine Fay, Michel Isingrini, et al.. Personality and organizational strategies in episodic memory: The role of Openness to experience on recall and subjective organization in young and older adults. L'Année psychologique, 2023, Memory and Aging, 123 (3), pp.513-537. 10.3917/anpsy1.233.0513. hal-03875390

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# Personality and organizational strategies in episodic memory: The role of Openness to experience on recall and subjective organization in young and older adults.

Florent Pinard, Sandrine Vanneste, Badiâa Bouazzaoui, Séverine Fay, Michel Isingrini, Lucie Angel, Erika Borella, Laurence Taconnat

IN L'ANNÉE PSYCHOLOGIQUE 2023/3 Vol. 123, PAGES 513 TO 537

PUBLISHER PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE FRANCE

ISSN 0003-5033

ISBN 9782130843252

DOI 10.3917/anpsy1.233.0513

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https://shs.cairn.info/journal-l-annee-psychologique-2023-3-page-513?lang=en

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# Personality and organizational strategies in episodic memory: The role of Openness to experience on recall and subjective organization in young and older adults.

Florent Pinard¹*, Sandrine Vanneste¹, Badiâa Bouazzaoui¹, Séverine Fay¹, Michel Isingrini¹, Lucie Angel¹, Erika Borella², Laurence Taconnat¹

¹ Université de Tours, Université de Poitiers, et UMR-CNRS 7295
Centre de Recherches sur la cognition et l'apprentissage, Tours, France.

² University of Padova, Padova, Italy

## ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to examine, in young and older adults, the relationship between Openness to experience, subjective organization strategy abilities and memory performance.

Fifty younger and 41 older adults learned a list of unrelated words and had to recall them successively 3 times, in order for us to calculate a subjective organization index (Pair Frequency, PF). Level of Openness was measured with the NEO-PI-R French version (BFI-Fr) of the Big-Five personality questionnaire. Older adults recalled and organized fewer words than younger adults. Openness was positively correlated with recall for both groups and with PF only in the older group. PF and Openness significantly explained recall in younger adults, while in older adults, only Openness accounted for recall. Openness contributed to PF only in older adults. A high score on the Openness trait could be considered as a reserve factor, reducing the age-related memory decline by fostering the accumulation of knowledge and the development of resources throughout life.

**Keywords:** episodic memory, memory strategy, aging, Openness to experience, personality

<footnote>* Corresponding Authors : Florent Pinard: florent.pinard@univ-tours.fr, Département de Psychologie, Université de Tours, 3, rue des Tanneurs, 37000 Tours-02 47 36 81 50</footnote>

<footnote>Laurence Taconnat : laurence.taconnat@univ-tours.fr, Département de Psychologie, Université de Tours, 3, rue des Tanneurs, 37000 Tours- 02 47 36 81 54</footnote>
Personnalité et stratégies d'organisation en mémoire épisodique :
 rôle de l'ouverture à l'expérience sur le rappel et l'organisation
des adultes jeunes et âgés

RÉSUMÉ

L'objectif de cette étude était d'examiner, chez des adultes jeunes et âgés, la relation entre l'ouverture à l'expérience, les capacités de stratégie d'organisation subjective et les performances de mémoire. Cinquante jeunes adultes et 41 adultes plus âgés ont appris une liste de mots non reliés sémantiquement et ont dû les rappeler successivement 3 fois, afin que nous puissions calculer un indice d'organisation subjective (Pair Frequency, PF). Le niveau d'ouverture a été mesuré à l'aide de la version française du NEO-PI-R (BFI-Fr) du questionnaire de personnalité Big-Five. Les adultes âgés ont rappelé et organisé moins de mots que les adultes jeunes. L'ouverture était positivement corrélée avec le rappel pour les deux groupes et avec le PF uniquement dans le groupe le plus âgé. Le PF et l'ouverture expliquent de manière significative le rappel chez les jeunes adultes, tandis que chez les adultes plus âgés, seule l'ouverture explique le rappel. L'ouverture n'a contribué au PF que chez les adultes plus âgés. Un score élevé d'ouverture pourrait être considéré comme un facteur de réserve, réduisant le déclin de la mémoire lié à l'âge en favorisant l'accumulation de connaissances et le développement de ressources tout au long de la vie.

Mots clés : Mémoire épisodique, stratégie de mémoire, vieillissement, ouverture à l'expérience, personnalité.

The aim of this study was to explore in young and older adults
whether the use of an efficient strategy for recall, namely subjective orga-
nization, depends on level of Openness to experience. Openness to expe-
rience is a personality trait that seems to contribute highly and positively
to cognitive abilities, particularly episodic memory, in older adults.

Episodic memory, the memory system that enables personal information and its spatial and temporal context to be encoded and retrieved, is one of the most impaired cognitive abilities in aging (e.g. McDaniel, Einstein, & Jacoby, 2008). Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain the age-related deficit in episodic memory, including a deficit in self-initiated strategies (Craik, 1983; 1990), and specific difficulties implementing efficient memory strategies, defined as goal-directed cognitive processes that improve performance (Lemaire & Reder, 1999). Implementing specific memory strategies is necessary to achieve good memory performance, particularly in tasks that do not provide cues or instructions to support encoding and/or retrieval processes (Craik, 1983, 1990; Craik & Jennings, 1992). In this case, individuals have to self-initiate strategies, which is strongly associated with control processes. In fact, age-related differences are usually accentuated in these types of memory task because
control processes (e.g. Rabinowitz, Craik & Ackerman, 1982; Craik, 1983, 1990), in particular executive functions, are reduced in older adults (Raz, 2000). Executive functions, defined as a set of control functions particularly involved in the processing of novel, non-routine problems (Elliott, 2003), play an important role in the self-initiation of memory strategies (Taconnat & Lemaire, 2014) and hence in older adults' memory performance. In the present study, we focused on the effects of age on the use of subjective organizational strategies. Organizational strategies are efficient means to learn and recall words when no cues are provided to facilitate retrieval. One of the main organizational strategies was first described by Bousfield (1953), who showed that when presented with a randomly ordered list of words belonging to several categories (i.e. an "organizable" list of words), individuals tended to recall the words in categorical clusters (i.e. consecutive recall of words pertaining to the same semantic category). When the words to be learnt are not semantically related, another organizational process can be used, namely subjective organization. Individuals who use this strategy recall the same pairs of unrelated words consecutively across successive trials, indicating that these words are bound by a subjective link in their episodic memory (Howard & Kahana, 1999; Sternberg & Tulving, 1977; Tulving, 1962). Subjective organization can be quantified by computing an organizational index, the Pair Frequency Index, corresponding to the number of word pairs recalled in two successive trials (Sternberg & Tulving, 1977). Numerous studies have demonstrated that using a subjective organizational strategy boosts recall performance (e.g. Davis et al., 2013; Taconnat et al., 2020, Sauzéon et al., 2006; Tulving, 1962), but that older adults use this strategy less than younger ones (e.g. Kausler, 1994; Light, 1991; Davis et al., 2013; Hultsch, 1974; Sauzéon et al., 2006; Stuss et al., 1996; Taconnat et al., 2020; Witte et al., 1990; Witte et al., 1993) and that their recall benefits less from organization than the younger ones (e.g. Sauzéon et al., 2006). The reduced capacity of organization in older adults can be attributed to an age-related deficit in self-initiated strategies, highly resources demanding (Craik, 1983; 1990), as organizing unrelated words requires finding some relationship between them, when there is no obvious link between the words and the participants are not given specific instructions.

In addition to the role of self-initiated strategies, personality also seems to play a moderate but consistent role in the effects of age on episodic memory performance by modulating how individuals process and remember information (e.g. Chapman, et al., 2012; Karsazi et al., 2021; Rammstedt et al., 2016; Schaie et al., 2004; Simon et al., 2019; Soubelet et al., 2010). Many studies (see for examples Lucchetti et al.,
2016; Simon et al., 2020; for reviews, and Stephan et al., 2020 for a longi-
tudinal study including the five personality traits) have been conducted
to assess the relationship between cognition and the five central persona-
lity traits of the Big Five model (Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extra-
version, Neuroticism and Openness to experience; Costa & McCrae,
1992). Agreeableness has not been found to be related to cognition.
Conscientiousness has been sometimes found to be negatively associated
with cognitive ability (e.g. Rammstedt et al., 2016), sometimes positively
associated to cognitive abilities (e.g. Chapman et al., 2017; Lucchetti et al.,
2016). Association with Extraversion seems domain-specific, i.e. positive
relationships when tasks are speed-based vs. negative association when
the tasks require effortful processing. The personality traits that appear
to be most negatively associated with cognitive performance, and in parti-
cular memory, are neuroticism, which corresponds to a disposition to
experience negative affect. It has been shown that neuroticism is positively
associated with Alzheimer's disease (Baena et al., 2021). The personality
trait most positively associated with memory performance is openness, a
tendency to be intellectually curious, creative and imaginative (e.g. Allen
et al., 2019; Karsazi et al., 2021 for reviews). In particular, several studies
have demonstrated that older adults who are open to new experiences
tend to age more successfully and perform better in cognitive tasks due
to a greater cognitive reserve (e.g. Franchow et al., 2013; Gregory et al.,
2010; Ihle et al., 2016; 2019; Karsazi et al., 2021). Although personality
may be considered to be stable over time (Roberts & Mroczek, 2008;
Talpain & Soubelet, 2020), other researches shown that personality traits
change with age. Agreeableness increases; Neuroticism decreases,
Conscientiousness shows a curvilinear pattern, scores increased up to a
peak between the ages of 50 to 70 and then declined, and Extraversion
and Openness decrease (Donellan & Lucas, 2008; Gonzatti et al., 2017).

In this study, we focused on Openness to experience. The relationship
between this personality trait and cognition has been widely studied, and
results consistently showed that Openness is positively associated with
cognitive abilities, especially as people age (e.g. Chapman et al., 2012;
DeYoung et al., 2005; Jackson et al., 2020; Schrelten et al. 2010). It may
contribute positively to cognition because individuals with a high level of
Openness seek intellectually stimulating experiences. These accumulated
experiences could reinforce their cognitive reserve (e.g. Ihle et al., 2016;
Karsazi et al., 2021, Soubelet & Salthouse, 2010), and together with life
experiences (emotional, social, environmental) and intelligence, can protect
against age-related episodic memory decline (e.g. Angel, Fay, & Isingrini,
2010; Gombart, Fay, & Isingrini, 2018; Park & Reuter-Lorenz, 2009).
Functions classically impaired during aging thus appear to be maintained more in older adults who have a high level of the Openness trait. Based on the “use it or lose it” theory (Bielak, 2010), the main mediator of the beneficial effect of Openness on cognitive functions seems to be engagement in activities that help maintain a high cognitive level with advancing age (e.g. Franchow et al., 2013; Gregory et al., 2010; Ihle et al., 2016; Karsazi et al., 2021; Soubelet & Salthouse, 2010). A high level of Openness to experience may thus enhance the acquisition of knowledge and stimulate cognitive resources, which in turn may explain the advantage of this personality trait in cognitive functioning, particularly in memory (Jackson, Hill, Payne, Parisi, & Stine-Morrow, 2020 for a review). Older adults with a high level of Openness to experience report using a larger and more efficient range of strategies to optimize performance on memory tasks (self-reported strategies in a word-pair learning task, i.e. subjective assessment, Talpain & Soubelet, 2020). Recent studies conducted in older adults only showed that the most open older adults are more likely to use controlled, self-initiated strategies (Martinez et al., 2021; Taconnat et al., 2022). To our knowledge, few studies have focused on the effect of Openness on objective memory strategy use. In recent studies, the role of Openness to experience in the memory performance of older adults depending on the task difficulty was examined (Martinez et al., 2021; Taconnat et al., 2022). A generation effect protocol (e.g. Slamecka & Graf, 1979; Taconnat et al., 2004) was used, in which the difficult condition involved the recall of read words, while the easier condition involved recalling generated words. Results clearly showed that the generated words were recalled better than the read words (generation effect), in both young and older adults in accord with the literature (e.g. Taconnat & Isingrini, 2004; Whiting, 2003). Thus, generating words could enhance memory performance, even in older adults, because efficient semantic encoding is driven by the task in the generation condition. By contrast, in the reading condition, participants must self-initiate semantic encoding, which is particularly resource dependent and difficult for older adults whose cognitive resources are reduced (e.g. Rabinowitz et al., 1982). Furthermore, in the older group, Openness to experience was specifically related to the recall of read words, which required self-initiated processes. By contrast, level of Openness to experience was not correlated with recall of generated words, where encoding processes are driven by the task. Thus, it appears that Openness to experience contributes to episodic memory performance when the task involves self-initiated strategies and controlled processing. Because open persons are more likely to engage in a variety of activities, a high level of Openness, would stimulate the control function of older adults (Bielak,
2010), enabling them to maintain adequate memory functioning when the task involves resource-demanding processes.

The main aim of this study was to compare the role of Openness to experience in episodic memory performance and use of a subjective organization strategy in young and older adults. First, we expected to observe a negative effect of age on recall and subjective organization, in accordance with previous research. We also expected that globally, individuals with better organizing strategies would recall more words, confirming the beneficial effect of organization on memory performance. However, in accord with previous research, association between organization and recall would be lower for the older adults than for the younger ones. Regarding the relationship between memory performance, personality and subjective organization, we expected (i) to confirm the positive association between level of Openness and memory performance, and (ii) to show that the Openness trait would enhance the use of a subjective organization strategy, as it had been shown previously for other memory strategies (Martinez et al., 2021, Taconnat et al., 2022; Talpain & Soubelet, 2020). The relationship between Openness to experience and the memory measures (recall and organization) would be greater in older than young adults. This hypothesis was based on three sets of evidence. (1) some results show that, when the effects were assessed in young and old adults, the cognitive performance of older adults seems to be more modulated by certain personality traits, in particular Openness, than that of younger adults (Schrelten et al., 2010). (2) Other research confirmed that higher level of Openness to experience is a protective factor of cognitive aging because Openness can act as a factor of cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve could reduce the effects of aging on several cognitive functions as memory or executive functions (see Chapman et al. 2012; Franchow et al., 2013; Gregory et al., 2010; Ihle et al., 2019; Karsazi et al., 2021; Martinez et al., 2021). Executive functions are highly associated to memory, especially in old age (e.g. Bouazzaoui et al., 2013; Bouazzaoui et al., 2014). (3) Jackson and colleagues (2020) state that the relationship between Openness, characterized by participation to various activities, and cognitive skills did not vary with age, but may differ according to education level, such that participating in various activities would be most beneficial for those with less formal education. However, older people often have a lower level of education, which could explain why the various activities that older people with a high level of Openness engage in are more beneficial to them. Thus, Openness would be better associated to cognition in older adults because open people continue to enrich their knowledge and participate to activities that can allows maintaining their fluid intelligence and executive functions.
Consequently, Openness to experience would be a better predictor of memory performance and organization for older than younger adults. If so, organizational strategy could mediate the relation between Openness to experience and recall performance, in particular in the older adults as it has been shown by Talpain & Soubelet (2020) with other kinds on memory strategies.

# METHODS

## Participants

Forty-six young adults (20-40 years old; mean age, 26.71, SD = 4.59; 27 women) and 41 older adults (60-80 years old, mean age, 70.65, SD = 5.86; 23 women) took part in this experiment. Older participants were home-living, reported themselves to be in good physical and mental health, and were screened on the MMSE (Mini Mental State Examination: Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, 1975) to identify the onset of degenerative brain disorder. Only those with a score over 27 were included in the sample to minimize the risk of including people with major neurocognitive disorders. Individuals with a history of alcohol abuse, brain lesion or taking medication that could affect their cognitive abilities were excluded from the sample. Level of education, and level of vocabulary measured by the Mill-Hill vocabulary test (Raven, Raven, & Court, 1989) were also taken into account to characterize the sample. None of the participants presented with anxiety or depressive symptoms, all scoring below 11 on the two subscales of the Hospital Anxiety-Depression Scale (HADS, Zigmond & Snaith, 1983). The present study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki, and all participants gave prior written informed consent.

We conducted t-tests to examine possible differences in educational level, vocabulary, anxiety and depression levels between the two groups. In line with the literature, there were significant differences in educational level, the young adults having completed more years of formal education (14.69 years, SD = 2.24) than the older adults (13.12, SD = 2.60, t(85) = 3.02, p = .003). The older adults had a higher level in vocabulary (28.39, SD = 3.16) than the younger ones (23.97, SD = 5.68), t(85) = 4.39, p < .001. No age-related difference appeared on the depression scale (6.28, SD = 3.12 and 6.58, SD = 3.34 respectively for the young and older adults, t(85) = .43, p = .66).
nor on the anxiety scale (6.86, SD = 2.55 and 6.09, SD = 2.99, for the young adults and the older adults respectively, t(85) = 1.29, p = .19).

# Design and Materials

## Episodic memory assessments

*Learning phase.* Memory was assessed with a list of 20 frequent words, objectively non-organizable (i.e. belonging to different semantic categories), all 4-7 letters long and with 2-3 syllables and their mean lexical frequency was 19.2 per million. They were selected from Brulex database; Content, Mousty, & Radeau, (1990) (see Appendice and see Taconnat et al., 2020 for details). In the learning phase, the 20 words were presented on a screen one by one at a rate of 5 seconds per item, in random order.

*Free-recall task.* In order to calculate the organizational index (Pairing Frequency index, PF), several trials of recall are required. Thus, the participants had to recall the words three times (free recall) without seeing them again, enabling us to evaluate changes in their memory and in the underlying organizing processes. They were instructed to say aloud the words they remembered in any order. The recall time was limited to 1 minute and 30 seconds. Participants performed three short interfering tasks (letter-pair comparison) between each trial to avoid any recency effect.

## Episodic memory measures

*Recall measure.* The memory score was the number of words correctly recalled in each of the three trials. The average of these three scores was computed and was used in the correlation and regression analyses.

*Subjective Organization strategy measure.* To assess the use of a subjective organization strategy, we computed a Pairwise Frequency Index (Anderson & Watts, 1969; Sternberg & Tulving, 1977) based on inter-trial repetitions, using the following formula:

$$PF = CP - [(2*CW)*(CW-1)/(R1*R2)]$$

CP: number of common pairs between R1 and R2; CW: number of common words between R1 and R2; R1: score on the first free-recall trial; R2: score on the second free-recall trial. Two PF indexes were thus calculated: 1) PF1 between R1 (first free-recall trial) and R2 (second free-recall trial), and 2) PF2 between R2 and R3 (third free-recall trial). An average
PF was calculated and used in the correlation and regression analyses. The higher the index, the better the words are organized.

## Personality measure

The NEO-PI-R French version (BFI-Fr) was used to assess personality. This self-questionnaire corresponds to the French version (Plaisant et al., 2010) of the NEO-PI-R developed by Costa & McRae (1992). It is based on the Big Five model and positions individuals on five scales corresponding to five personality traits: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to experience. To this end, participants answer 45 questions using a five-point Likert scale from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”. Cronbach’s alpha, which measures the internal coherence ranged from 0.74 to 0.82 in the different factors (Plaisant et al., 2010). In this study, we used only the scores obtained for "Openness to experience" (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient = .74). Comparing the scores of the two age groups on this scale showed that the scores to Openness of the older adults (32.24, SD = 6.35) were slightly lower than those of the younger adults (34.39, SD = 5.26), t(85) = 1.75, p = 0.08.

## Data processing

A specific recall procedure (three trials) was used to compute the PF indexes. However, to reduce data and simplify the analyses, we calculated means of recall scores and PF indexes, and only these means were used in the analyses. Consistent with the mixed design planned for this study, performance to the recall test and the organizational index (PF) were analyzed with General Linear Model (GLM) analyses. Note that this type of GLM analysis is used to analyze models with combinations of continuous (as PF index or Openness scores) or categorical (as age-group) predictors when applied to quantitative scales and allows to test the interaction between categorical and continuous variables. Because GLM analysis does not provide the direction of the effects, correlational analyses between the dependent variable and the independent variables were performed to assess this direction. Moreover, if a significant interaction appeared between the age group and the continuous variable on a cognitive measure (recall or organization index), correlational analyses were conducted to analyze the association between Openness and recall (and/or organization index) in the young adults and in the older adults separately. A first
analysis was performed to check (i) the effect of age on recall and organization (ii) the effect of organization on memory with a 2 (age group: young vs older) * individual organization index (PF) GLM analysis on the recall score. Then, two other analyses were conducted to examine (iii) the effect of age group and Openness on recall with a 2 (age group: young vs older) * individual Openness score GLM analysis, and (iv) to assess the effect of age group and Openness on organization with a 2 (age group: young and older) * individual Openness score GLM analysis. Our second objective was to test the potential mediating role of Openness in the relation between organization and memory in young and older adults. Beforehand computing theses mediation analyses, multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the contribution of Openness to organization, and the contribution of organization and Openness to memory performances.

# RESULTS

## Effect of age Group on the recall scores

Because in a GLM each factor is analyzed under the control of the other factors entered in the analysis, age alone entered in the analysis was conducted to assess the effect of age alone on the recall score. This analysis showed a significant effect of age group on recall, ($F(1,85) = 37.24, p < .0001, \eta_p^2 = .304$), confirming that the older adults recalled less words than the younger ones.

## Effect of Age Group on the organizational index (PF)

As for the recall, a first GLM analysis was conducted on the PF index to assess the effect of age alone. The analysis showed a significant effect of age group on recall ($F(1,85) = 14.39, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .145$), the older adults organizing less the words than the younger ones.

## Effect of Age Group and organization on the recall scores

The GLM analysis performed on recall scores revealed a significant effect of Age group ($F(1,83) = 15.77, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .159$), indicating
that older adults recalled less words than the younger ones. There was
also a significant effect of the organizational index PF (F(1,83) = 7.79,
p = .006; ηₚ² = .085). Interaction between Age Group and organization
was not significant, (F < .1), suggesting that the effect of organization
was equivalent for the young and the older adults. Correlational analyses
indicated that age group was negatively correlated with recall (r = -.552,
p<.0001), i.e. the older the participants, the fewer words they recalled; and
that the PF index was positively correlated with the recall score (r = .569,
p < .0001), indicating that the more organized the words, the better the
recall. Correlational analyses were performed in each group separately. In
the young adults, PF index was significantly associated to recall (r = .54
p < .0001) and accounted for 29.16% of the variance of recall
(.54² = .2916), but not in the older adults (r = .24, p = .13 ns).

Effect of Age Group and Openness on the recall scores

The GLM analysis performed on the recall scores revealed a significant
effect of age group (F(1,83) = 11.83, p < .0001, ηₚ² = .125). Openness
affected significantly the recall (F(1,83) = 4.28, p = .041; ηₚ² = .05); and its
effect was different regarding to age group, as qualified by the significant age
group * Openness interaction (F(1,83) = 5.94, p = .016; ηₚ² = .07). Correla-
tional analyses showed that in the whole group, Openness was signifi-
cantly and positively correlated to recall (r = .295, p = .006) indicating
that a high Openness score was associated with better recall. In the
younger adults, Openness was only marginally correlated to recall in the
younger adults (r = .251, p = .09) and accounted for 6.3% of the variance
of recall (.251² = .063) while it was positively correlated to recall in the
older adults (r = .607, p < .0001) and accounted for 36.84% of the
variance in recall (.607² = .3684).

Effect of Age Group and Openness on the organizational
index (PF)

The effect of age group was significant (F(1,83) = 7.59, p = .007, ηₚ² = .084). Globally, Openness did not affect organization (F(1,83) = 1.16), ns but the interaction between age group and Openness was significant (F(1,83) = 4.58, p = .035; ηₚ² = .053) suggesting that Openness affected differently organization in young and older adults. Correlational
analyses showed that age group was negatively correlated to organization ($r = -.38, p < .0001$), i.e. the older the participants, the lower the organizational index. Openness was not correlated with the organizational index in the younger adults ($r = .14, p = .35$) while it was positively correlated to the organizational index in the older adults ($r = .503, p = .001$) and accounted for 25.3% of the variance in recall ($.503^2 = .253$).

## Predictors of recall

First, because the organizational index was only predicted by age group (Openness had no global effect on organizational index) no regression analysis was conducted on the PF index. Then, to examine how Openness and organization as well as the interaction between these two variables contributed to the recall score, hierarchical regression analyses were performed on the whole group. Then, because interaction between age group and Openness on the organizational index and on recall were significant, regression analyses were computed in the young and the older groups separately to test our main hypothesis that predictors of memory performance may differ according to age group. In these analyses, all variables were entered in the equation at the same time, and they appear in decreasing order of reliability in the analysis. The results are presented in Table 1.

<caption>**Table 1.** Results of the Regression Analysis on Recall with interaction between Openness and PF index, Openness and PF index entered in the analyses (plus age group for the analysis in the whole group)</caption>

<table><caption>**Tableau 1.** Résultats de l'analyse de régression sur le rappel, avec l'interaction entre l'Ouverture et l'indice PF, l'Ouverture et l'indice PF entrés dans l'analyse (plus le groupe d'âge pour l'analyse sur le groupe entier)</caption><thead><tr><th>Steps</th><th>Whole group<br>(N = 87)</th><th>Young adults<br>(N = 46)</th><th>Older adults<br>(N = 41)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>Interaction Openness*PF<br>β = 0.40, p &lt; .001<br>R<sup>2</sup>C = 0.33, p &lt; .0001</td><td>PF index<br>β = 0.54, p &lt; .001<br>R<sup>2</sup>C = 0.29, p &lt; .0001</td><td>Openness<br>B = 0.31, p &lt; .0001<br>R<sup>2</sup>C = 0.37, p &lt; .0001</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Age group<br>β = -0.38, p &lt; .0001<br>R<sup>2</sup>C = 0.14, p &lt; .0001</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Openness<br>B = .13, p = .10<br>R<sup>2</sup>C = 0.017</td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>
Regression analyses showed that for the whole group, the interaction between Openness and the PF index was the first predictor of recall and accounted for 33% ($p < .0001$) of the variance of recall; Age group added 14% ($p < .0001$) and Openness added a marginally significant 1.7% ($p = .10$). To interpret the Openness x organizational index interaction, sub-groups were formed to compare high and low levels of Openness and organizational index based on a median split (5 younger and 3 older participants with a score equal to the median were eliminated from the analyses). GLM analyses were thus conducted to assess the effect of organization in the low and high Openness groups separately. Results showed that the organizational index had a significant effect on memory in the lower Openness group ($F(1,39) = 16.02, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .29$), as well as in the higher Openness group ($F(1,35) = 16.68, p < .001, \eta_p^2 = .32$). The same type of analyses was conducted to examine the effect of Openness in the low and high organizer groups separately. Results showed that Openness had a significant effect in the lower organizers ($F(1,40) = 7.16, p = .01, \eta_p^2 = .15$), while it had no effect in the higher organizer ($F(1,40) < 1$).

In the young adults, only the PF index explained a significant part of variance of recall (29%, $p < .0001$) and in the older adults, only the Openness score accounted for a significant part of variance of recall (37%, $p < .0001$).

Because Openness was not globally related to the organizational index, mediation analysis in the whole group was irrelevant. In the younger group, Openness was not correlated to memory performance, and in the older group, the organizational index was not correlated to memory performance. Thus, the statistical conditions necessary to perform a mediation analysis separately in each group were therefore not met either.

## DISCUSSION

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between Openness to experience, episodic memory performance and subjective organization in young and older adults. Consistent with previous research, we observed the classical effects of aging on recall (e.g. McDaniel, Einstein & Jacoby, 2008) and on subjective organization (e.g. Sauzéon et al., 2006; Taconnat et al., 2020), as well as a positive relationship between these two measures (e.g. Taconnat et al., 2020), confirming
that organization is an efficient strategy to boost recall. However, in our study although the GLM analysis showed a significant effect of organization on recall equivalent for young and older adults, the correlational analysis conducted in each age group separately indicated that organization was significantly associated to recall in the younger group only. In the older group, the correlation was not significant. That might have appeared because the association between the subjective organizational strategy and recall is lower in the older adults than in the younger adults, and the sample was too small to show a significant correlation. This explanation would be compatible with some studies showing a significant correlation between subjective organization and recall in older.

More interestingly, and in line with our expectations and previous studies examining the relationship between Openness and memory strategy use (e.g. Martinez et al., 2021; Talpain & Soubelet, 2020), our data confirmed that memory and subjective organization were positively associated with level of Openness to experience, although that a marginally level in the younger adults. A novel finding was that the use of the organizational strategy, which was objectively quantified, was dependent on the level of Openness to experience, but only in older adults.

## Association between Openness and memory: strategy use and recall

To our knowledge, only three studies have explored the role of Openness to experience in strategy use but none on the links between openness and organization. Two of these (Martinez et al., 2021; Taconnat et al., 2022) investigated the involvement of Openness to experience in strategy use and memory performance in “easy” and “difficult” memory tasks, and found that it was associated with the recall of words learned in a condition requiring a high level of cognitive resources (i.e. the most difficult). The third study (Talpain & Soubelet, 2020) explored the relationship between Openness to experience and self-reported strategy use in a word-pair learning task. The authors found that the relation between Openness to experience and memory performance was mediated by use of self-reported strategies, in particular cognitively demanding and efficient strategies, in both young and older adults. Altogether, these results suggest that a high level of Openness to experience contributes to memory performance, as this personality trait is related to the engagement of resource-dependent processes, which are themselves involved in memory performance. In the present study, we examined for the first time the association
between Openness to experience and an efficient, highly resource-demanding memory strategy, namely, subjective organization, which was quantified by the pair frequency index (PF) calculated from the participants' recall scores. Thus, in the present study, we assessed strategy use objectively, in contrast to Talpain and Soubelet's (2020) study, which analyzed self-reported strategies, and Martinez and colleagues (2021) and Taconnat and colleagues (2022) studies in which strategies varying in difficulty (i.e. less or more resource demanding) were inferred from the learning condition. Our results for this objectively quantified strategy are in line with those of the previously mentioned authors, as the participants with a high level of Openness to experience were those who organized the words best and recalled the most words.

Talpain and Soubelet (2020) did not compare in depth the association of Openness to experience with memory and strategy use in young and older adults, and Martinez et al. (2021) and Taconnat et al. (2022) explored these relationships only in older adults. In the present study, we expected that the correlations between the level of Openness and the memory variables would be higher in the older than younger adults, and we assumed that Openness would be a better predictor of recall and strategy use in older adults. These hypotheses were based on the view that Openness contributes to the development of cognitive reserve (e.g. Chapman et al., 2012; Franchow et al., 2013; Gregory et al., 2010; Ihle et al., 2019; Karsazi et al., 2021; Martinez et al., 2021), which protects cognitive abilities from the effects of aging (Stern, 2002). Moreover, as stating by Jackson et al. (2020), Openness would be better associated to cognitive skills in older adults whose educational level is often lower than that of younger adults. According to that statement, Openness, by favoring engagement in stimulating activities, would compensate for a lower educational level. This is also the case in this study, where younger adults have completed more years of education than the older adults. The present results are partially in accord with our expectations. Openness was better associated to recall and organization in the older adults than in the younger ones, as evidenced by the interaction between Age and level in Openness on both the recall and the organization index. In the younger group, the level of Openness was positively (although only marginally) associated with the recall scores, but not with the organizational index. A positive association between Openness to experience and recall in young adults is consistent with previous studies that have shown a positive effect of Openness on memory in young adults (e.g. Simon et al., 2019; Soubelet & Salthouse 2010). Other studies stated that young students with a high level of Openness to experience learn better because
they use deeper memory strategies (Duff, Boyle, Dunleavy & Ferguson, 2004; Marcela, 2015; Ruffing, Hahn, Spinath, Brünken & Karbach, 2015). Talpain and Soubelet (2020) showed that a high level in Openness was associated to better strategy use in older adults as well as in young adults. However, none of these studies investigated the organization strategy. In the present study, the younger adults organized the words better than the older adults, and their recall scores depended on the quality of organization and at a lesser extent, on Openness, but the level of Openness was not associated with organizational strategy use. It is thus possible that the most open younger participants used other memory strategies to memorize the word list, which would explain why Openness to experience was associated, although slightly, with their recall scores, but not with their organizational index. An alternative explanation would be that the recall task was relatively easy for the young adults with efficient memory functions, and that their level of Openness to experience was not a discriminant factor for organizing the word list. This interpretation is consistent with studies showing that individual factors influencing certain memory tasks in older adults do not affect the same tasks in young adults. For example, control processes, such as executive functions, would be associated with memory performance in high loading tasks for younger adults, and in lower loading tasks for older adults (Isingrini, Angel, Fay, Taconnat, Lemaire & Bouazzaoui, 2015). In the same vein, Bouazzaoui, Fay, Taconnat, Angel, Vanneste, and Isingrini (2013) and Bouazzaoui, Angel, Fay, Taconnat, Froger, and Isingrini (2014) showed that executive functions were associated with memory performance in older adults but not, or to a lesser extent, in young adults. Openness has been linked to activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, like executive functions (DeYoung, Peterson & Higgins, 2005). It is therefore possible that it acts in a similar way; in other words, the association between cognitive abilities and Openness is higher in older than in younger adults but may appear in the latter when the cognitive tasks are highly resource-demanding. It would thus be interesting to replicate the study using a more difficult memory task (e.g. a longer word list) and including measures of executive functions, to explore in greater depth the relationship between Openness and subjective organization capacity, and between Openness and control processes. Thus, further research is needed to more clearly establish the links between organizational strategies, executive functions, and openness to experience, as our data do not allow us to directly test the relationships between these three factors.
Predictors of memory performance: organizational strategy use and recall

The statistical conditions necessary to perform a mediation analysis in the whole group and in each age group separately were not met; therefore, our hypothesis that organizational strategy could mediate the relation between Openness to experience and recall performance could not be tested. However, several important results have emerged and showed, in accord with our predictions, that the young and the older adults present different profiles. Globally, among the variables studied in the present experiment, only the age group predicted the organizational strategy, openness had no significant effect on this strategy. This result was not in accordance with our prediction and appeared because openness was not associated to the organizational index in the younger adults. However, in the older adult group, correlational analyses showed that Openness was highly and positively correlated to the PF index, indicating that the more open older adults are, the more they organize words at recall. These results are consistent with our hypotheses and with the results of Talpain and Soubelet (2020) and Martinez et al., (2020) who showed that older adults with a higher level of Openness make more use of memory strategies. This relationship would appear because older people with a high level of Openness to experience, by participating in various activities throughout their life, have stimulated their general cognition, in particular executive functions (e.g. Ihle et al., 2016), which are strongly associated with episodic memory, especially in older adults (e.g. Bouazzaoui et al., 2013; 2014; Raz, 2000; West, 1996). DeYoung et al., (2005) showed that individuals with a high level of Openness to experience have a higher level of executive functioning than those with a lower level of Openness. In particular, Openness to experience, described by McCrae and Costa (1997) as permeability to new ideas, a need for novelty, and associated with a leaning toward nontraditional values, would reflect a type of cognitive flexibility contributing to adaptation to novelty. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that Openness to experience is a reserve factor (e.g. Ihle et al., 2016; Martinez et al., 2021), and therefore that episodic memory abilities in older adults are closely related to life experience. In the present study, results show that Openness accounted for a significant part of variance of the organizational index (PF) in older adults (i.e. 25.3%). Achieving this strategy requires new relationships between the words to be created, based for example on the creation of small scenarios or mental images that link two words. For example, if individuals
recall the word-pair “tree, window” at trials 1, 2 and 3, one can assume
that they linked them in a sentence such as “I can see a tree by the
window” or created a mental image of a tree by the window. These strate-
gies, particularly mental imagery, are efficient for memory (Burger et al.,
2017). It is possible that Openness, associated with creativity, leaning
toward nonconventional values, and search for new experiences, also faci-
litates creativity in learning by imaging and finding new, efficient memory
strategies. Accordingly, subjective organization could be considered as an
index of creativity, because it requires making new (creative) associations
between unrelated words. In the present study, cognitive reserve was not
directly measured by specific tests or questionnaires, and thus, we cannot
closely assume that openness was associated to cognitive reserve.
However, the participants’ level of education, which is considered as an
important cognitive reserve factor (Stern, 2002) was available. It was cor-
related to openness in the whole group (r = .29, p = .006), in the older
group (r = .34, p = .03), but not in the younger group (r = .13, p = .37).
This suggests that young adults can have a high level of openness regar-
dless of their level of education, but that older adults with a high level of
education have the highest level of openness, and also the best memory
performance. These data are consistent with studies that have shown links
between level of openness and cognitive reserve, particularly in aging.

Furthermore, in a large sample of healthy adults, Schretlen et al.,
(2010) found a link between Openness and performance on tests of
verbal/crystallized intelligence, with stronger correlations for the older
cohorts. This suggests that people with a high level of Openness are more
likely to have developed broad semantic knowledge throughout life, this
larger verbal repertoire helping them to create new semantic associations,
which in turn enhances efficient episodic memory functioning in late
adulthood. Semantic knowledge is a protective resource that would act by
postponing the impact of aging on cognition in high resource individuals.
Increasing the level of knowledge throughout life could improve the
ability to resist the effect of aging on cognition. This protective effect of
knowledge would occur mainly in tasks whose resolution relies more
directly on the associative and lexical network (Gombart, Fay & Isingrini,
2018). We checked the correlation between Openness to experience and
our index of semantic knowledge (i.e. scores on the Mill-Hill vocabulary
test) and found that vocabulary was correlated with Openness in the older
adults (r = .56, p < .0001), but not in the younger ones (r = .14, p = .36).
This result is consistent with that of Schrelten et al. (2010) and suggests
that the older adults with the highest level of Openness are those who
also have the highest level of semantic knowledge, and that this knowledge
may help them to implement the subjective organization strategy.

Predictors of recall were analyzed with regression by entering
Openness scores, PF index scores and the interaction between these two
variables. In the whole group, the interaction between openness and the
PF index was the main variable accounting for the recall performance.
Deeper analyses showed that the organizational index was an efficient
memory strategy for the low open participants as well as for the higher
open ones, but that a high level in openness would be efficient for recall
only for the participants who present difficulties to implement the organi-
zational strategy. That would explain why openness is more associated to
memory in the older adults who organized less the words than the
younger ones. Accordingly, the analyses conducted in each group separa-
tely showed different patterns in the young and the older adults. In the
former group, the organizational index was the only predictor of recall,
while in the latter, the recall score depended only on openness. In accord
with the literature, organization in an efficient strategy that helps recall,
but this strategy is strongly resource dependent and difficult to implement
in older adults with reduced cognitive resources. However, when these
older adults have a high level in openness, they have been able to develop
other abilities that allow them to achieve a higher level of memory perfor-
mance than those with a lower level of openness, thanks, perhaps to a
better cognitive reserve.

To conclude, this study confirms that Openness to experience is positi-
vely associated with memory performance in young (although only mar-
ginally) and older adults. Findings in older adults indicate that Openness
is also associated with organization strategies when these are objectively
assessed. Openness, by fostering the accumulation of knowledge and the
development of resources throughout life, would improve the use of
memory strategies by older adults in particular, and consequently their
memory performance. A high score on the Openness to experience trait
could therefore be considered as a cognitive reserve factor, making it
possible to reduce the memory decline commonly observed in aging.
## CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

None

## ACKNOWLEDGMENT:

The authors would like to thank Elizabeth Yates for proofreading this manuscript and Lea Martinez, Marie Bousquet and Tanguy Lesieur for their help in collecting data.

## FUNDING SOURCES:

This work was supported in part by grants from the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Grant # ANR-17-CE28-0003-02.

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APPENDICE

<table><thead><tr><td>Liste de mots utilisée dans l'expérience</td><td>Wordlist used in the experiment</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Abeille</td><td>bee</td></tr><tr><td>Farine</td><td>Flour</td></tr><tr><td>Peigne</td><td>Comb</td></tr><tr><td>Fenêtre</td><td>Window</td></tr><tr><td>Bougie</td><td>Candle</td></tr><tr><td>Guitare</td><td>Guitar</td></tr><tr><td>Lune</td><td>Moon</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td>Marteau</td><td>Hammer</td></tr><tr><td>Tulipe</td><td>Tulip</td></tr><tr><td>Orange</td><td>Orange</td></tr><tr><td>Coton</td><td>Cotton</td></tr><tr><td>Luge</td><td>Sled</td></tr><tr><td>Cahier</td><td>Notebook</td></tr><tr><td>Ecran</td><td>Screen</td></tr><tr><td>Moulin</td><td>Mill</td></tr><tr><td>Bouche</td><td>Mouth</td></tr><tr><td>Piscine</td><td>Pool</td></tr><tr><td>Statue</td><td>Statue</td></tr><tr><td>Tasse</td><td>Cup</td></tr><tr><td>Crayon</td><td>Pencil</td></tr></table>