Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38888108›Full record

ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2024

Characterizing Features of Creative Writing in Older Adults.

William Orwig, Daniel L Schacter

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Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

William OrwigDepartment of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-9913-6391
Daniel L SchacterDepartment of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-2460-6061

Funding

AGING MEMORYR37AG008441 · NIA · HARVARD UNIVERSITY · PI SCHACTER, DANIEL L · 2000 to 2009
$3.3M
Episodic Retrieval and Problem Solving in AgingR01AG008441 · NIA · UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA · PI SCHACTER, DANIEL L · 1989 to 2022
$3.1M
NIA NIH HHS AG008441NIA NIH HHS R01 AG008441NIA NIH HHS R37 AG008441
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesHow does creative expression change across the life span? Although creativity is generally preserved well into adulthood, certain cognitive functions, such as episodic detail and ideational fluency, have been shown to decline with age. The present study employs computational linguistic analyses to investigate the salient features of creative writing in older adults.

methodsWe collected short stories from a sample of 50 older adults (age 65≤) which were subsequently rated for creativity by an independent set of participants. Mixed-effects linear regression models were used to describe semantic diversity and perceptual details as predictors of creativity. Semantic diversity reflects the extent to which a narrative connects divergent ideas and is closely associated with creativity. Perceptual details, characterized by sensorial descriptions, have been previously associated with creative writing and may serve to transport readers to alternative times and places. Additionally, we compare these measures to a previously collected sample of stories from younger adults.

resultsResults indicate that the presence of perceptual details and semantic diversity were significant positive predictors of creativity (p < .05). Moreover, we find that stories written by older adults contain fewer perceptual details compared with stories written by younger adults. DISCUSSION: These results advance our understanding of age-related changes in creativity and highlight the potential role of episodic simulation in writing creative short stories.

Indexed as

CreativitySemanticsWritingAgedAgingFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedNarrationCreativityEpisodic simulationPerceptual detailSemantic memory

Identifiers

PMID38888108
PMCPMC11304954

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