Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University.
Department of Psychology, Montclair State University.
Psychol Aging. 2023 Nov;38(7):670-683. doi: 10.1037/pag0000732. Epub 2023 Apr 27.
Navigation aids can help people conduct daily wayfinding activities. However, because of cognitive limitations that can emerge with age, it is not clear how different navigation aids impact wayfinding behaviors and spatial memory in older adults. In Experiment 1, 66 older adults and 65 younger adults participated. They were asked to make turn decisions when the navigation aid was a map, a map plus self-updating (Global Positioning System [GPS]), or a text. After the wayfinding task, they completed two spatial memory tasks recalling scenes and drawing the routes. Results showed that younger adults outperformed older adults on most outcome measures. The text and the GPS conditions benefited older adults' wayfinding behaviors more than the map condition, as indicated by route decision accuracies and reaction times. However, the map condition was associated with better route memory than the text condition. Experiment 2 aimed to replicate the results using more complex environments. Sixty-three older adults and 66 younger adults participated. The advantage of the text over the map conditions was again found in wayfinding behaviors for older adults. However, no difference was found between the map and the text conditions in route memory. No difference was found between the GPS and the map conditions in any outcome measures. Overall, our results showed the relative strengths and weaknesses of different navigation aids and the interactive effects between the type of navigation aid, age, outcome measure, and environmental complexity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
导航辅助工具可以帮助人们进行日常的寻路活动。然而，由于认知能力随着年龄的增长而出现限制，目前尚不清楚不同的导航辅助工具如何影响老年人的寻路行为和空间记忆。在实验 1 中，66 名老年人和 65 名年轻人参与了研究。当导航辅助工具是地图、地图加自更新（全球定位系统[GPS]）或文本时，他们被要求做出转弯决策。寻路任务完成后，他们完成了两项空间记忆任务，回忆场景和绘制路线。结果表明，在大多数结果测量中，年轻人的表现优于老年人。文本和 GPS 条件比地图条件更有利于老年人的寻路行为，表现为路线决策准确率和反应时间提高。然而，地图条件与更好的路线记忆相关，而文本条件则不然。实验 2 旨在使用更复杂的环境复制这些结果。63 名老年人和 66 名年轻人参与了研究。对于老年人来说，文本条件再次优于地图条件，在寻路行为方面表现出优势。然而，在路线记忆方面，地图条件和文本条件之间没有差异。在任何结果测量中，GPS 条件和地图条件之间都没有差异。总的来说，我们的研究结果显示了不同导航辅助工具的相对优势和劣势，以及导航辅助工具类型、年龄、结果测量和环境复杂性之间的交互作用。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2023 APA，保留所有权利）。
