Kimura Kazushige, Reichert James F, Kelly Debbie M, Moussavi Zahra
Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
Neurosci Insights. 2019 Dec 31;14:2633105519896803. doi: 10.1177/2633105519896803. eCollection 2019.
Daily life requires accurate navigation, and thus better understanding of aging on navigational abilities is critical. Importantly, the use of spatial properties by older and younger adults remains unclear. During this study, younger and older human adults were presented with a virtual environment in which they had to navigate a series of hallways. The hallways provided 2 general types of spatial information: geometric, which included distance and directional turns along a learned route, and featural, which included landmarks situated along the route. To investigate how participants used these different cue types, geometric and/or landmark information was manipulated during testing trials. Data from 40 younger (20 women) and 40 older (20 women) adults were analyzed. Our findings suggest that (1) both younger and older adults relied mostly on landmarks to find their way, and (2) younger adults were better able to adapt to spatial changes to the environment compared with older adults.
日常生活需要精确的导航，因此更好地了解衰老对导航能力的影响至关重要。重要的是，老年人和年轻人对空间属性的使用情况仍不明确。在这项研究中，向年轻和年长的成年人展示了一个虚拟环境，他们必须在其中导航一系列走廊。这些走廊提供了两种一般类型的空间信息：几何信息，包括沿着已学路线的距离和方向转弯；特征信息，包括沿途的地标。为了研究参与者如何使用这些不同类型的线索，在测试试验中对几何和/或地标信息进行了操纵。分析了40名年轻人（20名女性）和40名老年人（20名女性）的数据。我们的研究结果表明：（1）年轻人和老年人大多依靠地标来找到方向；（2）与老年人相比，年轻人更能适应环境的空间变化。
