HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Cited by other online articles Google Scholar Articles by Adams, C. Articles by Vitolo, L. Articles citing this Article PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Adams, C. Articles by Vitolo, L.

Social Context Effects on Story Recall in Older and Younger Women

Does the Listener Make a Difference?

^a University of Oregon, Eugene
^b University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
^c University of Utah, Salt Lake City
^d Eugene, Oregon

Cynthia Adams, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403. E-mail:[email protected]

Decision Editor: Fredric D. Wolinsky, PhD

The story-recall performance of older and younger women was examined within an oral story-retelling context with two listener conditions. Forty-eight older women (M age = 67.81 years; SD = 2.62) and 47 younger women (M age = 20.47 years; SD = 1.53) were asked to learn one of two stories with the goal to retell the story from memory either to an experimenter or to a young child. Did the listener make a difference in story recall? Yes. Although age-group differences in propositional recall favoring the younger women occurred when an experimenter was the listener, there were no age-group differences when a child was the listener. In addition, when a child was listening, both older and younger tellers adapted their narratives by producing more elaborations and repetitions, as well as by simplifying the more complex of the two stories. Across stories, however, the older tellers adjusted the complexity of their retellings to the age of their listeners more than did the younger tellers. Results highlight the importance of considering the social context of remembering in memory-aging research.

This article has been cited by other articles: (Search Google Scholar for Other Citing Articles)

				K. Hooker and D. P. McAdams Personality Reconsidered: A New Agenda for Aging Research J. Gerontol. B. Psychol. Sci. Soc. Sci., November 1, 2003; 58(6): P296 - 304. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]