How age-related strategy switching deficits affect wayfinding in complex environments

Abstract

Although most research on navigation in aging focuses on allocentric processing deficits, impaired strategy switching may also contribute to navigational decline. Using a specifically designed task involving navigating a town-like virtual environment, we assessed the ability of young and old participants to switch from following learned routes to finding novel shortcuts. We found large age differences in the length of routes taken during testing and in use of shortcuts, as, while nearly all young participants switched from the egocentric route-following strategy to the allocentric wayfinding strategy, none of the older participants stably switched. Although secondary tasks confirmed that older participants were impaired both at strategy switching and allocentric processing, the difficulty in using shortcuts was selectively related to impaired strategy switching. This may in turn relate to dysfunction of the prefrontal-noradrenergic network responsible for coordinating switching behavior. We conclude that the large age difference in performance at the shortcutting task demonstrates for the first time, how strategy switching deficits can have a severe impact on navigation in aging.

A virtual water maze revisited: Two-year changes in navigation performance and their neural correlates in healthy adults

“…Hence, the common correlations of these measures with LPFC observed here. Smaller LPFC volumes in older adults partially mediated declines after the two-year hiatus and could be related to a shift towards less-effective strategies (Moffat and Resnick 2002; Rodgers et al 2012; Wiener et al 2013; Harris and Wolbers 2014). Further, individual differences in neural substrates and navigation strategies are likely to shape navigation paths through complex interactions, either as compensation following age-related decline (McDonald and White, 1993; Harris et al 2012; Schuck et al 2015) or as competing influences (Chersi and Burgess, 2015; Poldrack and Packard, 2003).…”

The Aging Navigational System

“…For example, planning a novel route requires both the retrieval of cognitive maps from long-term memory as well as the computation of novel and viable path options from the current position to the destination. Aging humans are less efficient in using cognitive map-like knowledge for such route planning tasks, even if they have first successfully learned an environment (Harris and Wolbers, 2014; Iaria et al, 2009; Liu et al, 2011). …”

“…This ability is particularly problematic for aged humans and other animals when required to switch from an egocentric to an allocentric strategy (Figure 4C), whereas switches from allocentric to egocentric strategies are less affected (Harris and Wolbers, 2012, 2014). Age-related deficits with navigational strategy switching are assumed to be a special case of general strategy switching impairments, which are caused by changes in prefrontal and locus coeruleus (LC) functioning.…”

Review of safety and mobility issues among older pedestrians

“…Studies suggest the preferential use of egocentric rather than allocentric strategies among the elderly, probably due to spatial memory deficits and executive declines (for a review, see e.g., Taillade et al, 2014). The age-related impairment in the allocentric strategy, and also the ability to switch from egocentric route-following to allocentric wayfinding strategies seems to explain why older adults were outperformed by younger ones when trying to find novel shortcuts to attain a previously learned goal location in a realistic but virtual town environment (Harris and Wolbers, 2014). Navigation in familiar environments appears to be less impaired with age than navigation in novel environments (Rosenbaum et al, 2012).…”