1,721,011 research outputs found
Knowledge of familiar environments: Assessing modalities and individual visuo-spatial factors
No full textFamiliarity enables us to form elaborate mental representations of environments, which are usually assessed
with tasks that involve managing spatial information (such as pointing and locating landmarks). The present
study also examines the role of familiarity using a “field” task that involved finding the shortest way to a
destination, and the contribution of individual visuo-spatial factors (a set of abilities, preferences and strategies).
Undergraduates more or less familiar with their university campus (45 in each group) performed pointing and
landmark-locating (spatial information managing) tasks, and a shortest path finding task, and were administered
several visuo-spatial measures. The results showed that familiarity had no effect on spatial information managing
performance, but did influence shortest path finding. Individual visuo-spatial factors variously supported
pointing accuracy, and shortest path finding performance. These results broaden our knowledge of how individual
factors (familiarity and visuo-spatial abilities, preferences and strategies) jointly support the knowledge
of an environment
Path Learning From Navigation in Aging: The Role of Cognitive Functioning and Wayfinding Inclinations
Full text linkAging 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. Their self-assessed wayfinding
inclinations (such as their sense of direction, pleasure in exploring places, and spatial
anxiety) were also examined. Then participants learned a path in an environment
from video navigation and performed a route repetition task (which maintained the
same egocentric perspective as the learning phase), and a sketch map task (which
involved switching from an egocentric perspective used in the learning phase to an
allocentric perspective). The results showed that positive wayfinding inclinations (in
terms of pleasure in exploring) related to participants’ route repetition accuracy, while
their general cognitive performance (MoCA scores) related to their sketch map drawing
accuracy. Individual factors such as cognitive functioning and wayfinding inclinations
relate differently to older people’s navigation performance, depending on the demands
of the tasks used to test their environment learning
Learning a path from real navigation: The advantage of initial view, cardinal north and visuo-spatial ability
Full text linkBackground: 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. Method: Ninety-one undergraduates took an unfamiliar path in two learning conditions, 46 walked from cardinal south to north (SN learning), and 45 walked from cardinal north to south (NS learning). Path recall was tested with SN and NS pointing tasks. Perspective-taking ability and self-reported sense of direction were also assessed. Results: Linear models showed a better performance for SN learning and SN pointing than for NS learning and NS pointing. The learning condition x pointing interaction proved SN pointing more accurate than NS pointing after SN learning, while SN and NS pointing accuracy was similar after NS learning. Perspective-taking ability supported pointing accuracy. Conclusions: These results indicate that initial heading aligned with cardinal north prompt a north-oriented representation. No clear orientation of the representation emerges when the initial heading is aligned with cardinal south. Environment representations are supported by individual perspective-taking ability. These findings offer new insight on the environmental and individual factors facilitating environment representations acquired from navigation
Not all is lost in older adults' route learning: The role of visuo-spatial abilities and type of task
No full textThis 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
Age-related differences in pointing accuracy in familiar and unfamiliar environments
Full text linkThis 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. Pointing performance correlated with visuospatial tests accuracy in both familiar and unfamiliar environments, while only pointing in an unknown environment correlated with visuospatial working memory (VSWM).
The spatial representation of well-known places seems to be well preserved in older adults (just as well as in young adults), while it declines for unfamiliar environments. Spatial abilities sustain the mental representations of both familiar and unfamiliar environments, while the support of VSWM resources is only needed for the latter
When environmental information is conveyed using descriptions: The role of perspectives and strategies
No full textVerbally-conveyed spatial information can typically adopt a survey or a
route perspective (i.e. a map view or a personal point of view, respectively). This
paper examines the role of spontaneous strategy use in learning from survey and
route descriptions (Study 1), and the effect of practicing with route and survey strategies
on route description learning (Study 2). In Study 1, participants listened to route
or survey spatial descriptions. In Study 2, three groups listened to route description
before and after practicing with the use of a survey strategy, a route strategy,
or without practicing with any strategy (Survey practice, Route practice, Control
groups respectively). In both studies, after listening to each description, participants
reported on their strategy use and answered true/false survey and route questions.
The results of Study 1 showed a greater accuracy for descriptions conveyed from the
same perspective as the one learnt, and survey descriptions elicited a greater use of
survey strategies. The results of Study 2 showed that the group which had practiced
with a survey strategy were more accurate for survey descriptions, and reported a
greater use of the survey strategy than other strategies, or than the other groups.
The results are discussed to expand on the spatial cognition framework and its
implications
Mental representations and emotions in urban environments: affective state, restorativeness and distance and time estimations
No full textHow directions of route descriptions influence orientation specificity: the contribution of spatial abilities
No full textPrevious 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. Description recall was tested with map drawing (after hearing the description a first and second time; i.e. Time 1 and 2) and South-North (SN) or North–South (NS) pointing tasks; and spatial objective tasks were administered. The results showed that: (a) the drawings were more rotated in NS than in SN descriptions, and performed better at Time 2 than at Time 1 for both types of description; SN pointing was more accurate than NS pointing for the SN description, while SN and NS pointing accuracy did not differ for the NS description; (b) spatial (rotation) abilities were related to recall accuracy for both types of description, but were more
so for the NS ones. Overall, our results showed that the way in which spatial information is conveyed (with/ without congruence between the egocentric and global
reference systems) and spatial abilities influence the development and maintenance of mental representations
Map learning and the alignment effect in young and older adults: how do they gain from having a map available while performing pointing tasks?
No full textTwo 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. The results of both studies showed that young and older adults’ performance was similar in aligned pointing, while the young performed better than the older adults in counter-aligned pointing. Analyzing the types of error, results showed that older adults made more counter-aligned pointing errors than young adults, both with and without the map. Having the map available improved all participants’ performance, however. Finally, visuo-spatial working memory was found to sustain pointing performance in all age groups and map conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that older adults are specifically susceptible to the alignment effect—making more counter-aligned errors—regardless of whether or not they have a map available while performing pointing tasks
The contribution of visuo-spatial factors in representing a familiar environment: The case of undergraduate students at a university campus
No full textFamiliarity with an environment enables us to form elaborate mental representations, which also relate to individual visuo-spatial factors. This study examines how several individual cognitive and self-reported visuo-spatial factors contribute to people's knowledge of familiar environments. Undergraduates attending a university campus area for 12 months were administered visuo-spatial (mental rotation and visuo-spatial working memory) tasks, and tested on self-reported preferences, attitudes and strategy use in approaching an environment. Their environment knowledge was tested using location, path length judgment and pointing tasks. Regression modelling on environment knowledge factors (considering all recall tasks together) showed that visuo-spatial abilities and self-reported pleasure in exploring were associated with more accurate environment representations. Some differences emerged when single environment knowledge measures were considered. The contribution of individual visuo-spatial factors to knowledge of familiar environments is discussed from the spatial cognition standpoint
- …
