Age differences in spatial memory in a virtual environment navigation task.
The use of virtual environment (VE) technology to assess spatial navigation in humans has become increasingly common and provides an opportunity to quantify age-related deficits in human spatial navigation and promote a comparative approach to the neuroscience of cognitive aging. The purpose of the present study was to assess age differences in navigational behavior in a VE and to examine the relationship between this navigational measure and other more traditional measures of cognitive aging. Following pre-training, participants were confronted with a VE spatial learning task and completed a battery of cognitive tests. The VE consisted of a richly textured series of interconnected hallways, some leading to dead ends and others leading to a designated goal location in the environment. Compared to younger participants, older volunteers took longer to solve each trial, traversed a longer distance, and made significantly more spatial memory errors. After 5 learning trials, 86% of young and 24% of elderly volunteers were able to locate the goal without error. Performance on the VE navigation task was positively correlated with measures of mental rotation and verbal and visual memory.
Moffat
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SD
Gerontology Research Center, National Institute on Aging, 5600 Nathan Shock Drive, Baltimore MD 21224, USA. moffat@lpc.grc.nia.nih.gov
Zonderman
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AB
Resnick
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SM
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014584:User-Computer Interface