Perceiving Stories, Seeing Selves: Older Adults’ Cognitive and Emotional Engagement with Human-Written Narratives and AI-Generated Imagery

Cognitive decline is a pressing challenge of aging, and digital cognitive training games offer a promising pathway for intervention. Yet older adults often disengage when tasks feel abstract, repetitive, or disconnected from meaningful context. Narratives paired with visuals are increasingly used in digital health interventions, but older adults’ perspectives remain underexamined. In this qualitative study, twenty-one adults aged 59 to 85 completed semi-structured interviews after reviewing and ranking three professionally written narrative prototypes, each paired with an AI-generated image sequence designed for a working memory training game. Thematic analysis showed that narratives enhanced motivation and engagement, with What We Leave Behind preferred, followed by Lerner's Love and Coming Home. Participants favored coherent, layered plots, emotionally meaningful themes, and imagery aligned with narrative tone, judging stories through both intuitive aesthetic reaction and reflective scrutiny of logical consistency and authenticity. Designing age-inclusive digital health narratives requires purposeful storytelling and believable AI-generated imagery.