Age-related differences in three-dimensional spatial memory.

This study focused on understanding age differences in spatial memory within a framework relating stimulus qualities to performance. It was hypothesized that elderly adults' spatial memory would be more disadvantaged, relative to young adults, with abstract, meaningless objects than with everyday objects. The study examined differences in memory for the horizontal, vertical, and depth dimensional planes of space in a 4 x 4 x 4 plexiglass cube. College students and community-dwelling adults studied and later reconstructed a three-dimensional arrangement of common or abstract objects located in a compartmentalized cube so that relocation errors could be independently measured within the horizontal, vertical, and depth dimensions. The principal findings were that (a) the magnitude of object displacement in the relocation task was greater for older adults; (b) young and elderly adults differed primarily in terms of large rather than small displacement errors; (c) the locations of meaningless items were more difficult to remember for both age groups; and (d) displacement errors in the vertical dimension were greater than the horizontal and depth dimensions, although this effect was only significant with meaningful items.