AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN AN ECOLOGICALLY BASED STUDY OF ROUTE LEARNING

Spatial learning abilities in younger adults and in healthy elderly ad ults were examined in 2 tasks. In the first task, participants were te sted for their ability to recall relevant route information as well as to recognize and to order temporally landmark information observed al ong the route. Older participants had relatively greater difficulty re tracing the route and temporospatially ordering landmarks but were equ ally good at recognition of landmarks occurring on the route. In the s econd task, participants memorized a 2-dimensional representation of a route and subsequently navigated the route from memory. Older partici pants had greater difficulty memorizing the route and navigating it. E rrors of omission, commission, wrong, and forced choice were analyzed. Group differences in the pattern of errors differed by task.