Age and exposure differences in acquisition of route information

Age and exposure differences were studied in the acquisition of sequentially ordered spatial information and in memory for critical route events. Ss in 4 age groups (older adults, middle-aged adults, college students, and adolescents) viewed slides depicting 2 overlapping neighborhood routes either 1 or 3 times. Older adults were less likely to recall landmarks sequentially and were more likely to recall nonspatial associations to the routes and to regard salient landmarks (rather than turns) as critical route-maintaining events. Exposure was related to number of landmarks recalled, route scene assignment, and reason for selecting critical scenes and was marginally related to critical scene selection. The results suggest that landmark saliency may relate to route learning for older adults, influencing both encoding organization and evaluation of environmental events. The role of decline in cognitive capacity, and the tendency to encode general vs. specific aspects of complex episodic experiences, are discussed.