Visuospatial working memory and (free and cued) recall of survey knowledge after environment navigation.

Navigating environments is a fundamental ability of daily life, with survey knowledge playing a crucial role. Survey knowledge varies between individuals, and these variations may be related to individual differences in visuospatial working memory (VSWM) ability. However, other factors, such as the modalities of recall (cued vs.

Soft skills and their relationship with life satisfaction and cognitive reserve in adulthood and older age.

Soft skills are key factors for success in multiple contexts of daily life, as well as for life satisfaction, but little is known about their role in late adulthood and older age. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationships of soft skills, as defined by the World Economic Forum, with two indicators of successful/healthy aging: life satisfaction and cognitive reserve. A sample of 435 adults aged 50 and over completed self-reported measures of soft skills, life satisfaction, and cognitive reserve.

Trajectories across the healthy adult lifespan on sense of direction, spatial anxiety, and attitude in exploring places.

Introduction: Self-evaluations about orientation and navigation in the environment contribute to individual differences in spatial cognition. Evidence suggests that they may change, even slightly, with the progression of adulthood. It is necessary to improve the framing of environment-related subjective self-evaluations in adulthood and aging by examining how they change and the factors related to them.

Investigating the different domains of environmental knowledge acquired from virtual navigation and their relationship to cognitive factors and wayfinding inclinations.

When learning an environment from virtual navigation people gain knowledge about landmarks, their locations, and the paths that connect them. The present study newly aimed to investigate all these domains of knowledge and how cognitive factors such as visuospatial abilities and wayfinding inclinations might support virtual passive navigation. A total of 270 participants (145 women) were tested online.

Men's and women's egocentric and allocentric knowledge: The involvement of mental rotation ability and spatial beliefs.

Individual factors can play a relevant role in explaining gender differences in environmental learning in terms of visuospatial abilities and beliefs about spatial abilities, such as stereotypes and growth mindset about navigation ability. In this study, we aim to investigate how mental rotation ability and spatial beliefs interact in the acquisition of egocentric and allocentric spatial knowledge. A sample of 244 participants (140 women) completed individual difference measures, including a mental rotation test (MRT) and questionnaires on gender stereotypes and growth mindsets about navigation ability.

The influence of individual characteristics on perceived restorativeness and benefits associated with exposure to nature in a garden.

This study newly explored the relationship between individual characteristics (i.e., connectedness to nature, a preference for natural rather than built environments, personality, visuospatial preferences) with perceived restorativeness, as well as affective and memory-related benefits of exposure to the nature.

Orientation Experiences and Navigation Aid Use: A Self-Report Lifespan Study on the Role of Age and Visuospatial Factors.

Spatial orientation is essential for daily life, but it deteriorates with aging. The present study was aimed at investigating age changes across the adult lifespan in the self-reported use of navigation aids and everyday orientation experiences, as well as investigating to what extent these are related to visuospatial working memory (VSWM) and self-reported wayfinding inclinations. A sample of 456 people aged 25-84 years rated how much they use navigation aids (maps, GPS, verbal directions), how much they went out, and how much they reached or lost their way to unfamiliar destinations (in 2016).

The practice of speleology: What is its relationship with spatial abilities?

Given the evidence of motor and exploring activities being related to spatial abilities on different scales, the present study considers the case of speleology, a peculiar underground exploratory activity. The relation of this practice with spatial abilities was examined. The study compares a group of expert speleologists (18), a group with a reduced amount of experience in speleology (19 novice speleologists), and a group with a similar amount of practice but in the outdoors (19 experts mountaineers).

Spatial Learning in a Virtual Environment: The Role of Self-Efficacy Feedback and Individual Visuospatial Factors.

We examined the roles self-efficacy plays in environmental learning in terms of self-efficacy feedback and task-specific (navigation-based) self-efficacy. We manipulated self-efficacy using positive and neutral feedback to investigate the relationship between receiving positive feedback and environmental learning performance and subsequent recall. A total of 231 participants were administered visuospatial tasks, where 117 received positive feedback, and 114 received neutral feedback.

Map Learning in Aging Individuals: The Role of Cognitive Functioning and Visuospatial Factors.

Aging coincides with a decline in map learning ability, but it is unclear to what extent different aspects of the mental representation are susceptible. The present study aimed to investigate knowledge about landmarks, their positions and distances (categorical and distance relations, respectively) in relation to aging as well as cognitive functioning (measured with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment [MoCA]), visuospatial abilities, and self-reported wayfinding inclinations. Thirty young adults and 60 older adults (30 aged 63-74 and 30 aged 75-86) learned a map, freely recalled the landmarks and performed a map drawing task (considering the number of landmarks missing, position accuracy and distance accuracy).

Differences in Encoding Strategy as a Potential Explanation for Age-Related Decline in Place Recognition Ability.

The ability to recognise places is known to deteriorate with advancing age. In this study, we investigated the contribution of age-related changes in spatial encoding strategies to declining place recognition ability. We recorded eye movements while younger and older adults completed a place recognition task first described by Muffato et al.

Learning a Path from Real Navigation: The Advantage of Initial View, Cardinal North and Visuo-Spatial Ability.

Background: Spatial cognition research strives to maximize conditions favoring environment representation. This study examined how initial (egocentric) navigation headings interact with allocentric references in terms of world-based information (such as cardinal points) in forming environment representations. The role of individual visuo-spatial factors was also examined.

Path Learning From Navigation in Aging: The Role of Cognitive Functioning and Wayfinding Inclinations.

Aging coincides with a decline in navigation and wayfinding abilities, but it is unclear to what extent factors relating to a given individual may contribute to mitigating this decline. The present study aims to analyze how older adults' objective cognitive functioning and self-reported subjective wayfinding inclinations predict their navigation performance. Sixty-four older adults were assessed on their general cognitive functioning (all scoring from 22 to 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA), visuospatial working memory (VSWM), and perspective-taking abilities.

The orientation of young and older adults' mental representations of their home town with familiar and new landmarks.

Familiarity with an environment produces refined mental representations in adults of all ages, but it is not clear whether these representations tend to have a north-up orientation and whether familiarity facilitates the learning of new spatial information, especially in ageing. Thirty-two young and 32 older adults studied a map of their home town that included familiar and new fictitious landmarks, then performed pointing tasks, some aligned with the cardinal points south-north (SN), and others counter-aligned, north-south (NS). A measure of visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) and a questionnaire on pleasure in exploring were also administered.

Evidence for age-related deficits in object-location binding during place recognition.

Deciding whether a place is the same or different than places encountered previously is a common task in daily navigation which requires to develop knowledge about the locations of objects (object-location binding) and to recognize places from different perspectives. These abilities rely on hippocampal functioning which is susceptible to increasing age. Thus, the question of the present study is how they both together impact on place recognition in aging.

The role of visuo-spatial abilities in environment learning from maps and navigation over the adult lifespan.

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.

Spatial mental representations: the influence of age on route learning from maps and navigation.

Experiencing an environment by navigating in it or reading a map (route and survey views, respectively) is a typical activity of everyday life. Previous research has demonstrated that aging coincides with a decline in spatial learning, but it is unclear whether this depends to some degree on how the learning conditions relate to the method used to assess the recall. The present study aims to shed light on this issue.

Map Learning in Normal Aging: The Role of Individual Visuo-Spatial Abilities and Implications.

Objective: The present study analyzes the age-related differences in map learning between young and normally-aging young-old and old-old adults in relation to individual visuo-spatial factors to specify which aspects of spatial learning are susceptible to aging.

Methods: Forty young, 40 young-old and 40 old-old participants performed a series of tasks to assess their visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) and visuo-spatial (rotation) abilities, then they studied a map. To test their recall, they graphically reproduced the map in a freehand drawing, then performed a sketch map task (which involved placing a list of landmarks on a blank layout of the map) and a pointing task (adopting aligned and counter-aligned imaginary positions).

How directions of route descriptions influence orientation specificity: the contribution of spatial abilities.

Previous studies found mental representations of route descriptions north-up oriented when egocentric experience (given by the protagonist's initial view) was congruent with the global reference system. This study examines: (a) the development and maintenance of representations derived from descriptions when the egocentric and global reference systems are congruent or incongruent; and (b) how spatial abilities modulate these representations. Sixty participants (in two groups of 30) heard route descriptions of a protagonist's moves starting from the bottom of a layout and headed mainly northwards (SN description) in one group, and headed south from the top (NS description, the egocentric view facing in the opposite direction to the canonical north) in the other.

Age-related differences in pointing accuracy in familiar and unfamiliar environments.

This study aimed to investigate age-related differences in spatial mental representations of familiar and unfamiliar places. Nineteen young adults (aged 18-23) and 19 older adults (aged 60-74), all living in the same Italian town, completed a set of visuospatial measures and then pointed in the direction of familiar landmarks in their town and in the direction of landmarks in an unknown environment studied on a map. Results showed that older adults were less accurate in the visuospatial tasks and in pointing at landmarks in an unfamiliar environment, but performed as well as the young adults when pointing to familiar places.

Map learning and the alignment effect in young and older adults: how do they gain from having a map available while performing pointing tasks?

Two studies were conducted to investigate age-related differences between young and older adults in the impact of a map being available or not while performing aligned and counter-aligned pointing tasks. In the first study, 19 young adults (aged 20-30) and 19 young-old adults (aged 65-74) studied a map and performed a pointing task. In the second, three groups of adults, 19 of them young (aged 20-30), 19 young-old (aged 65-74), and 19 old-old (aged 75-84), studied a map and performed a pointing task, first with the map available, and then without it.