How we spent our vacation: collaborative storytelling by young and old adults

Young and old dyads collaborated in describing a mutually experienced event. Three general aspects of the vacation descriptions of 10 younger (M = 28.5 years) and 10 older (M = 70.7 years) married couples were examined. First, regarding the structure of the stories, the older adults' speech contained longer clauses, and they were less likely to situate an event in absolute time than were the younger adults. Second, regarding the content of the stories, older couples' discourse was more subjective, with more descriptions of places and people and fewer descriptions of itineraries than younger couples'. Third, regarding the interactions of the collaborators, the older couples produced fewer words of support for their spouse and more monologues than did the younger couples. This pattern of findings may result from a strategy by the elderly storytellers to decrease the memory demands of the task and the cognitive demands of the collaboration.