Age differences in the formation and use of cognitive maps - Essay Example

Age differences in the formation and use of cognitive maps The research is on cognitive maps which according to the authors are mental representations of the environment. It focuses on whether age has any effects on the ability of individuals to form and even use their formed cognitive maps. In order to be able to prove their hypothesis, they had participants of different ages (both young and old) and putting them in a virtual environment (that was created from three-dimensional computer gaming software) that was navigated by the researchers to represent real life environment and its issues; they were able to get results that will be discussed below.

The results indicated that the participants that were older in age took more time to form cognitive maps of their environment than the younger participants. This therefore means that they also took more time to put into use their cognitive maps and therefore the number of errors they committed compared to their counterparts the younger participants was many before they became fully oriented. According to the results, the younger participants took only and average of 9.6 seconds to reach their target location while the older participants took 53.

32 seconds (Laria et al 189). This is a considerable difference and which led to the following conclusion.The general conclusion from the research findings supports the hypothesis about age affecting formation and use of cognitive maps. The conclusion however has its own limitations and the authors indicate that there might be differences in the results depending on the type of tasks people have to undertake. The age of the individuals might also provide slight differences in the results and it is important to define the age that is using the cognitive maps (Laria et al 190).

Work CitedLaria, Giuseppe, Liana, Palermo, Giorgia, Committeri and Jason, Barton. “Age differences in the formation and use of cognitive maps.” Behavioral Brain Research 196 (2009), 187-191. Retrieved from: www.elsevier.com/locate/bbr