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Age-Related Differences in Viewer-Rotation Tasks: Is Mental Manipulation the Key Factor?

¹ School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
² Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada.

Address correspondence to Sylvain Gagnon, School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 6N5. E-mail: sgagnon{at}uottawa.ca

Using a viewer-centered frame of reference (VCFR) paradigm, we examined whether the necessity to mentally manipulate the frame of reference can explain why older adults were found to be impaired on a variety of spatial memory tasks. Twenty-four younger participants (18–35 years of age) and 24 older participants (65–78 years of age) performed a pointing task under four conditions in which a physical or imagined rotation was induced. In three conditions (updating, imagining, and ignoring), the frame of reference was shifted after encoding, which required a mental manipulation at the time of retrieval. In a control condition, the VCFR was held constant. Overall results show that the necessity to mentally manipulate the VCFR accentuates age-related differences. The presence of mental manipulation should therefore be considered when one is interpreting age-related differences found in spatial memory tasks.

Key Words: Mental manipulation • Spatial memory • Viewer-rotation task