ArticleExperimental brain research2022
Differential effects of aging on spatial abilities.
Article in Experimental brain research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Game-Based Assessment of Spatial Cognition Across a Wide Age Range.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Hand use predicts mental rotation ability in a sex-specific manner.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Game over? examining associations between video game play and visual and auditory spatial ability.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Predictive Factors of Augmented Reality-Based Clinical Task Performance Among Novice Users: Cross-Sectional Quantitative Study.JMIR XR and spatial computing · 2026Article
- Sex and hand differences in haptic processing: implications for mental rotation ability.Biology of sex differences · 2025Article
- Sex differences in visuospatial cognition- a female advantage in jigsaw puzzle solving.Experimental brain research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Visuospatial functions are particularly vulnerable to the aging process. Decline of these processes can seriously affect an individual's functional independence and quality of life. Effectively assessing the spatial abilities of older adults is, therefore, crucial for identifying strategies to maintain cognitive functioning. The purpose of the present study was to use ecological tasks more comparable to activities of daily living to assess spatial ability in older adults. Three hands-on tasks (a visual search task, a low- and a high-mental rotation demand tasks) and a version of the well-known paper-based mental rotation of figures test (Shepard and Metzler, Science 171(3972):701-703, 1971) were given to 60-79-year-old female and male participants. The hands-on tasks required participants to locate, manipulate, and arrange real objects (i.e., toy bricks) in space. Age had a negative impact on visual search but not on mental rotation ability. Male participants outperformed females in the mental rotation tasks, but a trend for the opposite (better performance by females) was found for the visual search task. The results suggest that spatial abilities are not a monolithic construct and that sub-categories of this construct are affected by age and by sex differently. While visual search function is susceptible to decline during old age, mental rotation ability is not. In addition, unlike the paper-based test, the hands-on tasks were found to be age-appropriate with a feasible level of difficulty for all participants. The hands-on tasks may be more appealing as a tool to evaluate, maintain, and/or enhance spatial function in older adults.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.