We tested the effectiveness of overaccommodative speech as a way to improve comprehension and recall of diagnostic and medication regimen instructions. Forty younger (M age = 21 years) and 82 older (M age = 71 years) adult women watched a videotape of an actor presenting medication instructions in either an overaccommodative or a neutral speaking style. Only older women with higher working memory performance levels benefited from overaccommodative speech. All groups had similar subjective reactions to the two types of stimuli: They preferred the speech attributes in the overaccommodative speech but preferred the person attributes of the neutral speaker. Finally, for older but not younger women, subjective reactions to the speaker predicted recall performance over and above age and working memory ability.
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