title: Automatization of personal and impersonal discourse with narrative re-telling as a function of age.
abstract: When older adults retell an impersonal story, the resulting narratives are typically characterized by more prolixity and less coherence than those produced by younger adults. We aimed to determine whether this pattern is also observed when retelling a personal narrative. Younger and older participants told a personal story three consecutive times. With retelling, no evidence of increased coherence or fluency or reduction in hesitancy was observed for either age group. The nature of autobiographical narrative construction explains why such stories are not subject to automatization. A failure to automatize personal narratives is not, therefore, a symptom of aging.
authors: a School of Psychology , Charles Sturt University , Wagga Wagga , Australia.
authors: Lauren L
authors: LL
authors: Saling
authors: a School of Psychology , Charles Sturt University , Wagga Wagga , Australia.
authors: Natasha
authors: N
authors: Laroo
authors: b Psychological Sciences , University of Melbourne , Melbourne , Australia.
authors: Michael M
authors: MM
authors: Saling
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001332:Automatism; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aging; automaticity; discourse compression; narrative retelling