Age effect on components of episodic memory and feature binding: A virtual reality study

The aims were (1) to explore the effects of normal aging on the main aspects of episodic memory--what, where, and when,--and on feature binding in a virtual environment; (2) to explore the influence of the mode of learning, intentional versus incidental; and (3) to benchmark virtual environment findings collected with older adults against data recorded in classical neuropsychological tests.

We tested a population of 82 young adults and 78 older adults without dementia (they participated in a short battery of neuropsychological tests). All the participants drove a car in an urban virtual environment composing of 9 turns and specific areas. Half of the participants were told to drive through the virtual town; the other half were asked to drive and to memorize the environment (itinerary, elements, etc.). All aspects of episodic memory were then assessed (what, where, when, and binding).

The older participants had less recollection of the spatiotemporal context of events than the younger with intentional encoding (p < .001), but similar recollection with incidental encoding (except for verbal spatial aspect). The younger participants showed better binding than older ones regardless of the type of encoding (p < .001). For the older participants the virtual test was sensitive to mnesic complaints as well as general cognitive changes (p < .05 to p < .01).

We view these results as an indication that virtual environments could provide helpful standard tools for assessing age effects on the main aspects of episodic memory.