Does Spatial Locative Comprehension Predict Landmark-Based Navigation?

Abstract

In the present study we investigated the role of spatial locative comprehension in learning and retrieving pathways when landmarks were available and when they were absent in a sample of typically developing 6- to 11-year-old children. Our results show that the more proficient children are in understanding spatial locatives the more they are able to learn pathways, retrieve them after a delay and represent them on a map when landmarks are present in the environment. These findings suggest that spatial language is crucial when individuals rely on sequences of landmarks to drive their navigation towards a given goal but that it is not involved when navigational representations based on the geometrical shape of the environment or the coding of body movements are sufficient for memorizing and recalling short pathways.

A dedicated system for topographical working memory: evidence from domain-specific interference tests

“…On the contrary, if it involves the whole environment and the individual's position, a task requiring the localization of positions in space should hamper performance more than motor tasks. On the other hand, if language is actually used as a strategy to memorize short pathways, articulatory suppression should affect the participants' performance, even though in the present study, the absence of landmarks should not enforce linguistic strategies (see Piccardi 2009;Piccardi et al 2015).…”

Path Learning in Individuals With Down Syndrome: The Floor Matrix Task and the Role of Individual Visuo-Spatial Measures

“…Other studies found additional cognitive abilities involved in path learning (again after exploring VE), including attention, perception, memory and executive functions (Purser et al, 2012;Nys et al, 2015). There is also evidence of 6 year old performance in the WalCT being related to individual visuo-spatial factors, such as field-independent cognitive style (Boccia et al, 2019), and even verbal abilities (such as grammar comprehension, when the squares used in the WalCT are identified with images reproducing landmarks; Piccardi et al, 2015).…”

“…There was evidence of their performance in the WalCT gradually improving, and becoming stable by 10 years of age, with virtually no gender-related differences . It should be noted that, when asked to learn a sequence of 4 squares, 6 years old were already able to do so, though they had more difficulty than older children, around 11 years old (Piccardi et al, 2015). The WalCT seems specifically to capture the processing ability involved in moving within a vista space setting, which differs from the processing ability involved in small-scale WM tasks.…”

Effect of Cognitive Style on Topographical Learning Across Life Span: Insights From Normal Development

“…The WalCT is a larger version (3 9 2.5 m; scale 1:10) of the Corsi Block Tapping Test (Corsi, 1972), composed of nine black squares (30 9 30 cm) placed on the floor. It has been used for experimental and clinical purposes (Palmiero & Piccardi, 2017;Piccardi et al, 2008Piccardi et al, , 2015Tedesco et al, 2017;Verde et al, 2015Verde et al, , 2016 to investigate topographical memory. In the TL, participants had to learn a fixed supra-span 8-block sequence.…”

“…Memory for route has been found to be positively associated with age in a sample of children whose age ranged between 5 and 11 years (Purser et al., ). Accordingly, topographical learning (TL)—namely, learning of spatial positions within the “vista space”—gradually increases from 6 to 11 years of age (Piccardi, Palermo, Bocchi, Guariglia, & D'Amico, ), and normative data suggest that it is fully acquired during late adolescence/early adulthood, being performances of young adults with an age ranging from 15‐ to 25‐years similar to that of adults with an age ranging from 26‐ to 35‐years (Piccardi et al., ). Taken together this evidence suggests that topographical memory skills likely improve from 11 to 15 years of age, during early adolescence, as it happens for other navigational skills.…”