Environment Learning from Spatial Descriptions: The Role of Perspective and Spatial Abilities in Young and Older Adults

The present study investigated age-related differences between young and older adults deriving mental representations from survey and route descriptions, and the involvement of spatial skills in their representation. A sample of 34 young (aged 20-30), 34 middle-aged (50-60) and 32 older (61-80) adults listened to survey and route descriptions of an environment and their recall was tested with a free recall task, a verification test, and a map drawing task; several spatial measures were also administered. The results showed that: i) middle-aged and older adults performed worse than young adults in all recall tasks; ii) all participants formed a perspective-dependent mental representation after learning a route description, but not after learning a survey description (as shown by the verification test); iii) age and spatial abilities predicted recall performance (in relation to type of task and the perspective learnt). Overall, spatial perspective and spatial skills influence the construction of environment representations in young, middle-aged and older adults.