Not all is lost in older adults' route learning: The role of visuo-spatial abilities and type of task

This study explores the role of age and individual visuo-spatial skills in different types of task after route learning. Thirty-eight young adults (24-35 years old) and 37 older adults (64-75 years old) completed visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) and rotation tasks. Then, after learning a route in a botanical garden, they performed environmental knowledge tasks. Older adults performed less well in route repetition, pointing, and map drawing tasks, but not for some demands within these tasks. In a shortcut task, older adults did just as well as young adults in choosing a shorter route to a landmark. After controlling for age, VSWM and rotation abilities predicted performance in the pointing task, only rotation abilities in the route repetition and map drawing tasks. Route learning accuracy in aging depends partly on the type of recall task used to test it, with a variable degree of involvement of individual VSWM and rotation abilities.