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Journal Article

Landmark-based spatial navigation across the human lifespan

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Bécu,  Marcia
Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, Université Paris-Sorbonne, France;
Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits, Kavli Institute, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway;
Department Psychology (Doeller), MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Bécu, M., Sheynikhovich, D., Ramanoël, S., Tatur, G., Ozier-Lafontaine, A., Authié, C. N., et al. (2023). Landmark-based spatial navigation across the human lifespan. eLife, 12: e81318. doi:10.7554/eLife.81318.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000C-DB8D-F
Abstract
Human spatial cognition has been mainly characterized in terms of egocentric (body-centered) and allocentric (world-centered) wayfinding bhavior. It was hypothesized that allocentric spatial coding, as a special high-level cognitive ability, develops later and deteriorates earlier than the egocentric one throughout lifetime. We challenged this hypothesis by testing the use of landmarks versus geometric cues in a cohort of 96 deeply phenotyped participants, who physically navigated an equiangular Y maze, surrounded by landmarks or an anisotropic one. The results show that an apparent allocentric deficit in children and aged navigators is caused specifically by difficulties in using landmarks for navigation while introducing a geometric polarization of space made these participants as efficient allocentric navigators as young adults. This finding suggests that allocentric behavior relies on two dissociable sensory processing systems that are differentially affected by human aging. Whereas landmark processing follows an inverted-U dependence on age, spatial geometry processing is conserved, highlighting its potential in improving navigation performance across the lifespan.