No abstract

Young and elderly women's performances on scene-recognition, distance-ranking, route-execution, and map-placement tasks were compared in familiar and novel supermarkets to seek evidence of an age-related deficit in spatial cognitive performance, a benefit of environmental familiarity, and an age-related decrement in the efficiency of spatial learning. Results suggested that younger adults acquired spatial information in a novel environment more quickly than did elderly adults, but findings indicated neither an age-related deficit in spatial cognitive performance nor a benefit of environmental familiarity. Scores from psychometric tests produced low correlations with cognitive task performance. Of the behaviors observed during exploration and route execution, only 1 was significantly correlated with cognitive task performance. Standing without scanning was negatively correlated with performance on 3 tasks for elderly adults only.

In a triangle completion task designed to assess path integration skill, younger and older adults performed similarly after being led, while blindfolded, along the route segments on foot, which provided both kinesthetic and vestibular information about the outbound path. In contrast, older adults' performance was impaired, relative to that of younger adults, after they were conveyed, while blindfolded, along the route segments in a wheelchair, which limited them principally to vestibular information. Correlational evidence suggested that cognitive resources were significant factors in accounting for age-related decline in path integration performance.

No abstract

A battery of cognitive tasks designed to assess information-processing speed, working memory capability, and declarative learning was administered to a cross-sectional sample of 477 adults ranging in age from 17 to 86 years. Results showed significant age-related decrements in all three constructs. A variety of structural equation models was fit to the results. The preferred model on empirical and conceptual grounds was one that showed (a) working memory capability as the most important mediator of age effects in declarative learning; (b) working memory capability as the mediator for the effects of general processing speed on declarative learning; and (c) differentiation among verbal, numeric, and spatial processing speed and between verbal and spatial working memory capability.