Age-related differences in spatial relational perception

Abstract

Deficits in episodic memory are prevalent in older adults (OA). Episodic memory involves binding event details to spatial contexts, thus, well-formed scene representations support memory for these associations. Furthermore, episodic memory and spatial processing share a neural underpinning: the hippocampus (HC). Episodic memory decline in aging is associated with HC degradation, suggesting a possibility that OA’s memory deficits may arise from an inability to process coherent spatial representations due to HC degradation. Although OA show impairments in spatial cognition, it is unclear whether these occur during early stages of scene processing, i.e., visual perception. We present a novel study which investigated age differences in spatial relational perception. We predicted that OA would perform worse than younger adults (YA) at identifying changes in object location, but not object identity. Although results revealed no differences in accuracy, OA were significantly slower than YA when identifying changes in object location, and not identity. Our findings therefore support the hypothesis, revealing an age-related impairment in visuospatial relational perception. We posit that this is due to degradation of the HC, endorsing its role in scene perception. Further research into this age-related impairment may reveal important links between episodic memory and visuospatial perception.