IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v79y2024i9pp187-p195..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Characterizing Features of Creative Writing in Older Adults

Author

Listed:
  • William Orwig
  • Daniel L Schacter
  • Annie L Nguyen

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

Suggested Citation

  • William Orwig & Daniel L Schacter & Annie L Nguyen, 2024. "Characterizing Features of Creative Writing in Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 79(9), pages 187-195.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:79:y:2024:i:9:p:p187-p195.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbae111
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:79:y:2024:i:9:p:p187-p195.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.