Navigation ability in young, middle-aged and older adults: Different domains of knowledge and their relationship with visuospatial factors

Abstract

Spatial navigation skills used in daily life are liable to decline with aging. They rely on a knowledge of landmarks, their locations (from egocentric and allocentric perspectives) and paths (learned in route and survey modes). This study investigated this knowledge in young, middle-aged and older people, also considering the role of individual visuospatial factors. Eighty-seven people in three age groups (20–30, 55–64, 65–75 years) were assessed on their visuospatial factors, and learned a path by walking in a real garden. Then their knowledge of landmarks (recognition task) and their positions (egocentric and allocentric pointing tasks), and the path (route repetition, order of landmarks, path finding and map drawing tasks) was tested. After controlling for sex and years of education, middle-aged and older adults performed similarly, and less well than young adults in allocentric pointing and map drawing tasks. Visuospatial working memory and sense of direction were the most influential individual factors, with specificity for each knowledge domain. In conclusion, the ability to use mental representations of environments learned from navigation relates to the domain of knowledge involved, age, and individual visuospatial factors.