Young and older adults' metaphor interpretation: The judgments of professionals and nonprofessionals

Abstract

Thirty young and 30 older adults provided interpretations for eight metaphors presented in written form. In Part A of the study, five experienced English teachers rated all interpretations (blind with regard to age of respondent) on a 7-point scale anchored with the terms “literal” and “poetic.” The professionals' ratings were no different for the young and older adult subjects' responses, suggesting maintenance with age of this ability. In Part B of the study, 16 young and 16 older adult nonprofessionals rated a statistically representative subset of the metaphor interpretations (again, blind with regard to age of respondent). Their 7-point rating scale was anchored with the global terms “very poor” and “excellent.” There was no overall difference in young and older nonprofessional adults' judgments. However, there was a Rater Age x Respondent Age interaction. The older nonprofessionals gave equivalent ratings to the metaphor interpretations of young and older adult respondents. The young nonprofessionals assigned significantly higher ratings to the young respondents' metaphor interpretations than to the older respondents' metaphor interpretations.