Differential effects of aging on spatial learning through exploratory navigation and map reading

Abstract

It has been shown that abilities in spatial learning and memory are adversely affected by aging. The present study was conducted to investigate whether increasing age has equal consequences for all types of spatial learning or impacts certain types of spatial learning selectively. Specifically, two major types of spatial learning, exploratory navigation and map reading, were contrasted. By combining a neuroimaging finding that the medial temporal lobe (MTL) is especially important for exploratory navigation and a neurological finding that the MTL is susceptible to age-related atrophy, it was hypothesized that spatial learning through exploratory navigation would exhibit a greater decline in later life than spatial learning through map reading. In an experiment, young and senior participants learned locations of landmarks in virtual environments either by navigating in them in the first-person perspective or by seeing aerial views of the environments. Results showed that senior participants acquired less accurate memories of the layouts of landmarks than young participants when they navigated in the environments, but the two groups did not differ in spatial learning performance when they viewed the environments from the aerial perspective. These results suggest that spatial learning through exploratory navigation is particularly vulnerable to adverse effects of aging, whereas elderly adults may be able to maintain their map reading skills relatively well.

Review of safety and mobility issues among older pedestrians

“…In contrast, in a new environment, the use of a printed map providing an aerial view of the neighborhood seems to be less helpful for older adults than for younger ones (e.g., Goodman et al, 2005;Sjölinder et al, 2005). Recently, however, the opposite result was obtained by Yamamoto and DeGirolama (2012), who showed that some older adults are able to maintain their map-reading skills relatively well in unknown environments.…”

Route repetition and route reversal: Effects of age and encoding method.

“…Although the current study was not designed to disambiguate the relative contributions of development and/or use of an allocentric representation versus mental spatial transformations in terms of age effects on learning from a map, previous research does suggest age-related impairments in these processes (Devlin & Wilson, 2010; Iaria et al, 2009; Joanisse et al, 2008; Yamamoto & DeGirolama, 2012). …”

“…Similarly, older adults evidence deficits on tasks requiring them to traverse routes in one direction after studying a map (e.g., Carelli et al, 2011; Wilkniss et al, 1997). A recent study directly compared the influence of a first-person perspective to a survey perspective for learning a spatial layout (Yamamoto & DeGirolamo, 2012). Greater age-related differences were observed for indicating landmark locations on a 2D representation of the environment after encoding from a first-person perspective than after map study.…”

Spatial Updating of Haptic Arrays Across the Life Span

“…By comparison, our DI values,~19 for younger participants and~47 for elder participants, were within a range similar to those reported in previous research. Results from reconstruction of object arrays with young participants revealed mean DI values around 20 (Shelton & McNamara, 2005) and between 35 and 65 for map reconstruction by older participants (Yamamoto & Degirolamo, 2012).…”