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...
| Published in: | British Journal of Psychology Vol. 111; no. 4; pp. 762 - 782 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Nov2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=146469250&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 146469250 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00071269 BJP jtl: British Journal of Psychology issn: 00071269 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Nov2020 vid: 111 iid: 4 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 146469250 10.1111/bjop.12432 ppf: 762 ppct: 20 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 604KB tig: atl: The orientation of young and older adults' mental representations of their home town with familiar and new landmarks. aug: au: Muffato, Veronica Meneghetti, Chiara Doria, Silvia De Beni, Rossana affil: Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, , Italy su: Memory Task performance Adults Mental orientation Questionnaires Space perception Thought & thinking Descriptive statistics sug: subj: Memory Task performance Adults Mental orientation Questionnaires Space perception Thought & thinking Descriptive statistics keyword: ageing alignment effect familiar environment landmarks map north‐up ageing alignment effect familiar environment landmarks map north‐up ab: 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. The results showed that performance was better when pointing SN than NS (alignment effect), whereas pointing performance for familiar landmarks was similar for SN and NS alignments (no alignment effect). No interaction involving age was found. VSWM emerged as a significant predictor of pointing performance. Spatial mental representations of familiar environments are elaborate and flexible as regards familiar landmarks, in both young and older adults; and a familiar layout does not seem to enhance older adults' spatial memory as regards new landmarks. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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