A virtual reality based tool for the assessment of 'survey to route'spatial organization ability in elderly population: preliminary data

摘要

It is a largely shared opinion that spatial cognition is thehuman capacity of orienting oneself in and to cope witheveryday environments. It is by actively interacting with anenvironment, in fact, that an agent is able to organizespatial knowledge in a route (egocentric) and survey(allocentric) map in order to effectively use it for explo-ration (Carassa et al. 2002). According to recent studiesspatial coping ability appears to be declining with age inhealthy elderly population. (McCaddon et al. 2001).Moreover, several studies in neuropsychology showed howone of the main consequences of cognitive decline is pro-nounced in the capacity to explore new environments,execute wayfinding in familiar contexts and use landmarkfor orienting themselves in complex situations.