AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN ADULTS MACROSPATIAL COGNITIVE-PROCESSES

Young and elderly adults' performance was compared on the Landmark Selection Task, designed to assess perceptual selection, and the Scrambled Route Task, designed to assess temporospatial integration. Age-related performance decrements were found on both tasks. Subjects' scores on psychometric tests hypothesized as involving some of the same processes as these experimental tasks yielded positive correlations to measures of task performance. Unexpectedly, self-estimates of wayfinding and distance estimation skills were negatively correlated to experimental task performance for elderly adults. Results were discussed in the context of declines in the effectiveness of selective attention, which is considered critical to perceptual selection, and in the proficiency of working memory, which is considered central to temporospatial integration.