Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Italy.
Br J Psychol. 2020 Feb;111(1):70-91. doi: 10.1111/bjop.12384. Epub 2019 Mar 29.
Visuo-spatial abilities have an important role in environment learning. The aim of the present study was to explore whether these abilities relate to spatial recall after learning an environment from a map or a video, and irrespective of the learner's age (from youth to old age). The study involved 431 participants from 25 to 84 years old, who were assessed for their visuo-spatial working memory, object-based mental rotation, and perspective-taking abilities. Then, they learned environments from a map and a video, and performed pointing, map drawing, and route repetition tasks after learning from each type of input. The resulting path models showed that age related to visuo-spatial abilities and (in some cases) to spatial accuracy, too. After accounting for age, visuo-spatial abilities also related to spatial recall performance, whatever the type of learning input, especially in pointing tasks and, to a lesser degree, in map drawing and route repetition tasks. Overall, the relationship between individual visuo-spatial abilities and environment learning relates to the learning input and the type of task used to assess recall. This relationship was found in a large and diverse sample of participants ranging from youth to old age.
视空间能力在环境学习中起着重要作用。本研究旨在探索这些能力是否与从地图或视频学习环境后的空间回忆有关，而与学习者的年龄（从青年到老年）无关。研究涉及 431 名 25 至 84 岁的参与者，他们的视空间工作记忆、基于物体的心理旋转和视角-taking 能力接受了评估。然后，他们从地图和视频中学习环境，并在从每种输入类型学习后执行指向、地图绘制和路线重复任务。结果路径模型表明，年龄与视空间能力以及（在某些情况下）与空间准确性有关。在考虑年龄因素后，视空间能力也与空间回忆表现相关，无论学习输入的类型如何，特别是在指向任务中，在地图绘制和路线重复任务中则相关性较小。总的来说，个体视空间能力与环境学习之间的关系与学习输入和用于评估回忆的任务类型有关。在从青年到老年的广泛且多样化的参与者样本中发现了这种关系。
