Landmark-based spatial navigation across the human lifespan
- Sorbonne Université, INSERM, CNRS, Institut de la Vision, France
- Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Neural Computation, The Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits, NTNU, Norway
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany
- Institut de la Vision, Streetlab, France
- Department of Ophthalmology, The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States
- CHNO des Quinze-Vingts, INSERM-DGOS CIC, France
- Department of Ophthalmology, Fondation Ophtalmologique Rothschild, France
Figures
Figure 1 with 1 supplement
Immersive Y-maze tasks to assess the relative influence of landmark and geometric spatial cues as a function of age.
(a) Top view of the Y-maze during the classical landmark condition (i.e., equiangular Y-maze; arm separation: 120°/120°/120°). Three distinct, distal landmarks (blue square, red circle, green star) …
Figure 1—figure supplement 1
Real-world Y-maze implementation.
(a) Dimensions of the Y-maze in meters, as seen from above. Panels are 2.23 m high. A–C differentiate the three corridors (see protocol). Landmarks are 0.45 m2 pictures hanging from the ceiling at …
Figure 2 with 1 supplement
Proportion of allocentric behavioral responses during probe trials in the three age groups.
Bar plots indicate the proportion of subjects who made either a majority (i.e., 3/3 or 2/3) or a minority (i.e., 1/3 or 0/3) of allocentric choices during the three probe trials. That is, green …
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Figure 2—source data 1
Proportion of allocentric behavioral responses during probe trials across age groups.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/81318/elife-81318-fig2-data1-v3.zip
Figure 2—figure supplement 1
Proportion of allocentric choices in the three probe trials.
(a) Proportion of subjects behaving allocentrically in the real-world Y-maze during the landmark condition (n = 17 participants: nine young and eight healthy older adults). (b–d) Proportion of …
Figure 3 with 1 supplement
Spatial navigation performance during learning trials across the three age groups in the landmark (n=42, left) and geometry (n=37, right) conditions (a–f).
Colored lines represent median values for the three age groups. Box plots in (a) show the median (colored lines), the interquartile range (25th and 75th percentiles, length of the boxes), 1.5× …
Figure 3—figure supplement 1
Scatter plots of the navigation variables for the first four trials of the learning phase across the three age groups.
Color code: children (yellow), young (blue), and older (orange) adults.
Figure 4 with 1 supplement
Gaze-mediated exploratory behavior during spatial learning.
(a–c) Gaze dwell-time proportion for sky (a), floor (b), and wall (c) regions of the virtual space as a function of age (young adults n=22, older adults n=28) and experimental condition (landmark …
Figure 4—figure supplement 1
Oculomotor behavior in the learning phase in young and older groups.
(a) Gaze dwell-time proportion for floor and wall regions as well as for the three landmark sectors of the sky region. (b) Spatial distribution of visual focus of attention over the sky region of …
Figure 5 with 1 supplement
Gaze dynamics in the probe trials of the landmark condition.
(a) Gaze dwell-time proportion relative to the sky region for young and older subjects. Independently from age, allocentric navigators explored significantly more the sky region in the probe trials …
Figure 5—figure supplement 1
Time spent gazing at the three landmarks during the first probe trial of the landmark condition (young adults, n=10 and older adults, n=17).
(a) During the orientation period, (b) during the navigation period, and (c) during the time spent in the central area of the environment. Box plots show the median (colored lines), the …
Figure 6
Trajectories and gaze vector field representations in the first probe trials of the landmark condition in young and older adults.
Qualitative representations of goal-oriented trajectories color-coded with instantaneous speed (top rows), and gaze vectors (bottom rows) of six representative young (a) and older (b) allocentric …
Figure 7 with 1 supplement
The presence of geometric cues eliminated the effect of age on navigation.
In the landmark condition, older allocentric adults took longer to reach the goal (a), were slower at reorienting in space (b), spent significantly more time in the central area of the maze (c), and …
Figure 7—figure supplement 1
Oculomotor behavior and navigation measures in the probe trials of the geometry condition.
(a) Gaze dwell-time proportion over the floor region for young allocentric subjects as well as older allocentric and egocentric navigators (there was no young egocentric subjects in the geometry …
Figure 8
Predictive eye-motion statistics.
(a, b) Evolution of gaze altitude throughout probe trials. In both the landmark (a) and geometry (b) conditions, the gaze altitude during reorientation differed between allocentric and egocentric …
Figure 9 with 3 supplements
Visuo-cognitive multivariate analysis of age-related modulation of spatial behavior.
(a) Principal component analysis (PCA) across 19 measures of visual, attentional, mnemonic, and spatial reasoning capabilities (see Supplementary file 3 for test descriptions). Participants could be …
Figure 9—figure supplement 1
Cognitive screening results for adult participants.
p-Values indicated to the left of the dashed vertical lines correspond to the comparison of the ‘Age effect’ (young vs. older adults, pooled across the two versions), whereas the other p-values …
Figure 9—figure supplement 2
Visual screening results for adult participants.
p-Values indicated to the left of the dashed vertical lines correspond to the comparison of the ‘Age effect’ (young vs. older adults, pooled across the two versions), whereas the other p-values …
Figure 9—figure supplement 3
Results from post-experiment self-reported visuo-spatial memory of landmarks.
(a) Recognition of the maze shape (among three possibilities). (b) Recall of the landmarks (among six possibilities). (c, d) Drawing of a top view map of the maze with the landmark array (c: example …
Author response image 1
Videos
Video 1
Disorientation of a participant in immersive virtual conditions.
Video 2
Examples of learning and probe trials in real-world conditions.
Additional files
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Supplementary file 1
Number of observations, mean, and standard deviation of age in different age groups.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/81318/elife-81318-supp1-v3.docx
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Supplementary file 2
Number of observations, mean, and standard deviation of age in different age groups for the experiments in real-world setting.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/81318/elife-81318-supp2-v3.docx
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Supplementary file 3
List of visual and cognitive tests performed by a subset of our adult participants.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/81318/elife-81318-supp3-v3.docx
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Supplementary file 4
Inclusion/exclusion criteria used for the SilverSight cohort (adult participants).
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/81318/elife-81318-supp4-v3.docx
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MDAR checklist
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/81318/elife-81318-mdarchecklist1-v3.pdf
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Source data 1
Participants’ demographics.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/81318/elife-81318-data1-v3.zip
