Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Aging Ment Health. 2021 Aug;25(8):1564-1571. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2020.1727844. Epub 2020 Feb 18.
Route learning is an everyday spatial ability important to individuals' independent living, and is known to decline with age. This study aimed to investigate the benefit of using an imagery strategy to support route learning in young and older adults.
Forty young adults and 40 older adults learned a path from a video. Twenty of each age group were taught to use an imagery strategy (strategy groups [SGs]), while the others received no specific instructions (control groups [CGs]). Then participants were asked to recall the order and location of landmarks they had seen along the path (landmark ordering and locating tasks).
Young adults recalled the order and location of landmarks better than older adults, and the SGs outperformed the CGs regardless of age. The Age group x Learning group interaction was only significant for the landmark locating task, with the young CG performing better than the older CG, while the older SG proved as good at recalling landmark locations as the young SG. Further, it was only among the older adults that the SG outperformed the CG.
These findings newly suggest that using imagery helps to sustain older adults' route learning ability, especially in spatial recall tasks demanding the active manipulation of spatial information learnt, such as locating landmarks previously encountered while navigating a path. These results are discussed within the aging and spatial cognition frameworks.
路线学习是一种日常的空间能力，对个体的独立生活很重要，且已知其会随年龄增长而衰退。本研究旨在探究使用意象策略支持年轻和老年成年人路线学习的益处。
40 名年轻成年人和 40 名老年成年人观看一段视频来学习一条路径。每个年龄组中的 20 人被教授使用意象策略（策略组 [SG]），而其他组则没有接受特定的指导（对照组 [CG]）。然后，要求参与者回忆他们在路径上看到的地标顺序和位置（地标排序和定位任务）。
年轻成年人比老年成年人更能回忆地标顺序和位置，且无论年龄大小，SG 均优于 CG。年龄组 x 学习组的交互作用仅在地标定位任务中显著，年轻 CG 比老年 CG 表现更好，而老年 SG 在回忆地标位置方面与年轻 SG 一样出色。此外，仅在老年成年人中，SG 才优于 CG。
这些发现表明，使用意象有助于维持老年成年人的路线学习能力，尤其是在需要主动处理所学习的空间信息的空间回忆任务中，例如在导航路径时定位先前遇到的地标。这些结果在老龄化和空间认知框架内进行了讨论。
