Adult Age-Group Differences in Recall for the Literal and Interpretive Meanings of Narrative Text

Abstract

This study examined age differences in recall for the literal and interpretive meanings of narrative text. Following presentation of one of two stories rich in both literal and interpretive content, younger (mean age = 19.2 years) and older (mean age = 72.2 years) adults were asked to retell and to interpret the story. Response task order was counterbalanced across participants. When asked to retell a story as close to the original as possible, the younger adults recalled more of the literal propositional content than did the older adults in the retell-first, although not in the interpret-first, condition. In addition, both older and younger adults recalled more of the main ideas (gist) relative to the details. When asked to interpret the same story, more older than younger adults produced deep and synthetic representations of the story's interpretive meanings. In addition, there was a clear preference among the older age group for deep-synthetic responding. Although more younger than older adults produced analytic interpretations, within the younger group there was no clear preference for either an analytic or a deep-synthetic style.

The persistence of inferences in memory for younger and older adults: Remembering facts and believing inferences

“…There was a main effect of response type [F(1,77) inference is easy to make and the study pace is controlled by the participant (Zacks & Hasher, 1988: Zacks et al, 1987, although older adults may keep active the incorrect inference longer during reading before settling on the correct inference (Hamm & Hasher, 1992). Previous studies have also shown that when participants are asked to recall a story, younger adults' recall is often more reproductive and text based (using specific details), whereas older adults' recall is more reconstructive and interpretive (Adams, 1991;Adams, Smith, Nyquist, & Perlmutter, 1997). In fact, some have argued that there may be motivational or strategic differences between younger and older adults that could explain these different patterns of data (e.g., Perlmutter & Mitchell, 1982;Reder, Wible, & Martin, 1986).…”

Aging and situation model processing

“…Related to this issue are findings that there is little age difference in gist-based processing (Adams, Smith, Nyquist, & Perlmutter, 1997;Meyer & Rice, 1981;Zelinski, Light, & Gilewski, 1984). Although older adults show marked declines in processing for details from a text, their ability to remember the gist or main point of what they have been presented seems relatively intact (Holland & Rabbitt, 1990;Zelinski et al, 1984).…”

“…Essentially, as processing abilities at the surface form and textbase levels decline, older adults are forced to place a greater emphasis on schema-based knowledge and the situation model level to counteract this deficit. Thus, older adults may be better able to abstract the moral of a story but, at the same time, have poorer memory for the story itself (Adams, 1991;Adams et al, 1997;Narvaez, Radvansky, & Lynchard, 2007). They also seem to utilize background knowledge to make elaborative inferences during recall of a text and respond better to inference-based comprehension questions, relative to younger adults (Miller et al, 2004).…”

Situated Language Processing Across the Lifespan: A Review

“…For instance, hearing as little as 20% of a target word in context permitted both older and younger adults to recognize it (Wingfield, Aberdeen, & Stine, 1991). Moreover, older (vs. younger) adults' story interpretations were more elaborate and enriched in meaning as evidenced by their retelling and interpretation of recently read stories (Adams, Smith, Nyquist, & Perlmutter, 1997). But while (linguistic and life) experience increases across the lifespan, processing speed and executive functions among others decline (e.g., Calder et al, 2003;Mill, Allik, Realo, & Valk, 2009).…”