Spatial navigation skills used in daily life are liable to decline with aging. They rely on a knowledge of landmarks, their locations (from egocentric and allocentric perspectives) and paths (learned in route and survey modes). This study investigated this knowledge in young, middle-aged and older people, also considering the role of individual visuospatial factors. Eighty-seven people in three age groups (20–30, 55–64, 65–75 years) were assessed on their visuospatial factors, and learned a path by walking in a real garden. Then their knowledge of landmarks (recognition task) and their positions (egocentric and allocentric pointing tasks), and the path (route repetition, order of landmarks, path finding and map drawing tasks) was tested. After controlling for sex and years of education, middle-aged and older adults performed similarly, and less well than young adults in allocentric pointing and map drawing tasks. Visuospatial working memory and sense of direction were the most influential individual factors, with specificity for each knowledge domain. In conclusion, the ability to use mental representations of environments learned from navigation relates to the domain of knowledge involved, age, and individual visuospatial factors.

日常生活中使用的空间导航技能容易随着年龄的增长而下降。他们依赖于地标、它们的位置（从自我中心和异己中心的角度）和路径（在路线和调查模式中学习）的知识。本研究调查了青年、中年和老年人的这些知识，同时考虑了个人视觉空间因素的作用。对三个年龄组（20-30、55-64、65-75 岁）的 87 人进行了视觉空间因素评估，并通过在真正的花园中行走来学习路径。然后测试他们对地标（识别任务）及其位置（以自我为中心和异己中心的指向任务）和路径（路线重复、地标顺序、路径查找和地图绘制任务）的了解。在控制了性别和受教育年限后，中老年人表现相似，在异心指向和地图绘制任务中不如年轻人好。视觉空间工作记忆和方向感是影响最大的个体因素，对每个知识领域都有特异性。总之，使用从导航中学习到的环境的心理表征的能力与所涉及的知识领域、年龄和个人视觉空间因素有关。