Effects of age and cultural congruency on patterns of narrative recall -Strategies corresponding to cognitive goal in each life stage utilized to process unfamiliar stimulus text-

The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of age and cultural congruency on the recall of the literal and interpretive meanings of narrative texts. 158 Japanese and American participants including older adults (aged: M = 69.75, SD = 3.57) and younger adults (aged: M = 19.58, SD = 1.97) were asked two tasks, to retell and interpret meanings of a narrative story representing either Japanese or American culture. When asked to recall the story, Japanese older adults interpreted the culturally-congruent story deeper and more synthetically than the culturally-incongruent story under the interpret-first condition whereas American older adults interpreted the culturally-incongruent story deeper and more synthetically than the culturally-congruent story under the both task order conditions. Younger adults produced more literal propositions than older adults in both cultural groups. Both older and younger adults utilized strategies corresponding to the cognitive goal in each life stage to process unfamiliar stimulus