Intrapersonal and extrapersonal space: performance of older adults on ecologically valid orientation tasks

This experiment examined performance of 20 older adults (64 to 76 years) and 20 young adults (18 to 35 years) on two orientation tasks: The Intrapersonal task required participants to point to parts of their body corresponding to those on a line drawing; and, the Extrapersonal task involved translating a route indicated on paper to walking a route on a corresponding floor map. Older adults were found to be slower at completing both tasks, although accuracy of performance was comparable between age groups. The results were interpreted in terms of a speed-accuracy tradeoff that increases with age.