Using stories to assess linear reasoning abolishes the age-related differences found in formal tests

Abstract Older adults are known to have difficulty with tests of formal reasoning. Inspired by previous work suggesting an influence of participants’ living ecology on reasoning ability, we examined in a group of 270 younger, middle-aged, and older adults whether presenting transitive reasoning problems (i.e., A > B, B > C, hence A > C) as informal narrative stories rather than formal problems might alleviate age-related declines. Formal materials resulted in the usual (strong) age-related differences favouring the young. In contrast, when informal spoken narratives were used and additionally all time pressure was removed, adult age differences were effectively abolished, possibly because the tasks now allow for easier encoding into and retrieval from episodic memory. This suggests that older adults’ real-life reasoning abilities are seriously underestimated when standard testing procedures are used.