PRODUCTION AND PERCEPTION OF VERBOSITY IN YOUNGER AND OLDER ADULTS

Older adults produced more off-topic speech (OTS) than younger adults during autobiographical interviews in previous studies, a finding attr ibuted to age-related deficits in inhibiting irrelevant information. I n this study, older adults produced more OTS than younger adults for a utobiographical topics, but not for picture descriptions. A 2nd sample of younger and older participants rated older adults' story quality m ore positively than that of younger adults, a problematic finding for the inhibitory deficit explanation. Rater age affected ratings of how focused the speech was on the topic, suggesting age differences in cri teria for OTS. These findings are consistent with the Pragmatic Change hypothesis, which maintains that older adults adopt communicative goa ls that emphasize the significance of life experiences rather than con ciseness in their personal narratives.