Appendix C.

Example stories from a younger and older adult participant who conveyed the same number of story propositions.

Younger Adult Telling the Story Depicted in Picnic

Alright, there is a family of mice. And they’re all preparing to go out on a picnic. So they grab all their their equipment like uh baseball bats and things. And they all load into the back of their big red truck. It’s a huge family so a lot of them have to sit in the very back and in the truck bed. And then they’re climbing a hill in their truck. And they hit a lot of bumps. And so one of the little mice flies out of the back. And no one notices because they’re all looking ahead. So this little mouse is stuck on the road feeling sad with his little mouse stuffed animal. As the rest of the family carries on to their destination. The family gets there. And they all unload all their picnic things. And get ready to set up under the tree. So the family starts setting up. Everyone’s happy and content. And they’re all playing looking at the lake picking flowers. You know, doing their activities. Meanwhile the little mouse that was ejected from the back of the truck. Just sits along the road hugging his stuffed animal and crying. He starts getting confused and a little scared so he sits up hugs his stuffed animal tight. Looks around and sees a raspberry bush. So uh he justs starts wandering over there. And meanwhile the rest of the family is playing in the lake. And getting ready to eat. And all that stuff. And uh the little mouse um was on his own. Starts eating the raspberries. And uh while he waits for his family. When the family sits down to eat. They realize that the other little mouse isn’t there. So all the kids are sitting there. And uh the parents are looking around. You know trying to wonder er trying to figure out where he is. So then they they know he’s not there. So then the entire family fans out and searches for him. And shouts his name and things like that. Then when they can’t find him they all load back into their truck. So they can retrace their route home. The little mouse is just laying in the grass. And um with a couple of raspberries just waiting. The family drives back. Looks all over the place uh comes back down their hill. And uh the little mouse hears something. So he starts coming out of the bushes. And he jumps into the middle of the road. To see his entire family barreling down the road looking and screaming for him. And when they see him everyone’s excited. They all start hugging him and everything. But then he realizes that he left his stuffed animal back in the grass somewhere. So he gets all anxious and scared and just starts running back through the grass to find his stuffed animal. And uh he finds it and is relieved. And then the entire family goes back and has their picnic.

Older Adult Telling the Story Depicted in Picnic

The mouse family decided one day it would be it would be nice to have a picnic. Well they all got ready. It was a big family. And they left their little house. And they went out to their pickup truck to go on to go have a picnic. Well obviously there was a mama and a papa mouse. There appeared also to be perhaps a grandma uh grandma and grandpa mouse. And of course a baby mouse with his own little with his own little doll. Well all the children were in back of the truck in the in the bed of the truck. And off they went way out into the uh country. And uh they seemed to be having a very nice time. And at one point however of in the middle of this uh country road which was barely a road cause it was full of rocks and gravel and all kinds of things like that. Well they hit a uh a rock which which so so fast and so hard that it the truck went up into the air. And when that happened baby mouse with his little doll mouse went flying off the end of the truck. Nobody noticed. But there he was all by himself in the middle of the road seeing watching the family disappear in the truck on their way to have their picnic. Well they got to where they thought would be a nice place to have a picnic. So they stopped. And everybody was so helpful. And they were having such a nice time. They unloaded their the ah the tablecloth and the picnic basket from the truck. And uh while the grown ups set it up the children went out playing. One went down to the lake and ah took a look in a looked in the water. Others played around danced around cavorted ah picked up uh uh flowers and posies and things like that while ah mom and pop while while the adults set up the picnic. Well they set it up very nicely with uh with the tablecloth and all the goodies on it. Meanwhile uh eh in before the before it was time to eat the uh the children got together for a for a softball game. And uh uh it looked like grandpa and grandma ah went off to the side. Grandpa had a banjo which he played for them to make nice music ah while a waiting for ah waiting until it was time to to go eat. Meanwhile a couple of the little ones were off just playing this that and the other thing and having a wonderful time. But the poor little baby mouse all by himself with his mouse doll was still back in the middle of the road feeling so sorry for himself because he didn’t know what to do or where to go. And he was all by himself. They had all gone off and left him. Well he was he was there. He was looking an uh be because he was so small he had a hard time even seeing over the ah the the ah bushes and other ah and other vegetation that was all around him. But then he found what looks to me like a paw paw bush. So he decided well that can’t be all bad. Meanwhile ah back with the family they started eating and taking pictures and jumping off the edge of the uh the dock into the water of the lake. And uh one of the mice had a little uh a little sailboat which was sailing away in the in the lake. And they had this lovely looking picnic with sandwiches watermelon uh salads cheese oh all the things that all the things that little mouse mice love love. Well little baby mouse off by himself decided to collect the uh to collect the paw paws from the paw paw bush and uh have himself his own little picnic. But then ah ah the rest of them apparently all of a sudden realized baby is not here what are we going to do? Well they started looking. They started calling. And ah they just looked everywhere they possibly could think of thinking that maybe baby had just wandered off well obviously that’s not what happened. And consequently they didn’t find him ah that way. But uh they looked every place. They looked under the rock. They looked in the water. They looked uh uh in all the bushes in all the uh in all the vegetation. And finally they decided well we don’t know what to do but we do have this time to go home. We need we need to leave. Meanwhile little baby mouse with his with his mouse doll was uh next to the roadway just having himself a nice little nap after eating up almost all those toh toh paw paws. Well as the truck approached ah ah they could see that there was rocks all over the place. So they began to wonder well what happened to little baby. Where did he go? Well they stopped. And they started wandering around looking for him. And all of a sudden there he was right in the middle of the road. They were so happy to see him. You could they were just everybody was just overjoyed. And they had themselves a wonderful time hugging and loving each other because they all loved each other so much. And then spread their blanket they spread their picnic right there and started all over again before they went home.