Bennett, C. R. – VEMI Lab

X-ray vision as a compensatory augmentation for slowing cognitive map decay in older adults

ederosby — Sat, 11 May 2024 16:00:24 +0000

Safe and efficient navigation often relies on the development and retention of accurate cognitive maps that include inter-landmark relations. For many older adults, cognitive maps are difficult to form and remember over time, which introduces serious challenges for independence and mobility. To address this problem, we explore an innovative compensatory augmentation solution enabling enhanced inter-landmark learning via an “X-Ray Vision” simulation. Results with (n=45) user study participants suggest superior older adult cognitive map retention over time from a single learning session with the augmentation versus a control condition without the augmentation. Furthermore, results characterize differences in decay of cognitive maps between older adults and a control of younger adults. These findings suggest important implications for future augmented reality devices and the ways in which they can be used to promote memory and independence among older adults.

Citation:

Bennett, C.R., Fink, P.D.S., & Giudice, N.A. (2024). X-ray vision as a compensatory augmentation for slowing cognitive map decay in older adults. Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24). DOI: 10.1145/3613904.3642644.

Spatial updating of multiple targets: Comparison of younger and older adults

eblackwood — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 16:29:34 +0000

When walking without vision, people mentally keep track of the directions and distances of previously viewed objects, a process called spatial updating. The current experiment indicates that while people across a large age range are able to update multiple targets in memory without perceptual support, aging negatively affects accuracy, precision, and decision time. Participants (20 to 80 years of age) viewed one, three, or six targets (colored lights) on the floor of a dimly lit room. Then, without vision, they walked to a target designated by color, either directly or indirectly (via a forward turning point). The younger adults’ final stopping points were both accurate (near target) and precise (narrowly dispersed), but updating performance did degrade slightly with the number of targets. Older adults’ performance was consistently worse than the younger group, but the lack of interaction between age and memory load indicates that the effect of age on performance was not further exacerbated by a greater number of targets. The number of targets also significantly increased the latency required to turn toward the designated target for both age groups. Taken together, results extend previous work showing impressive updating performance by younger adults, with novel findings showing that older adults manifest small but consistent degradation of updating performance of multitarget arrays.

Bennett, C. R., Loomis, J. M., Klatzky, R. L., & Giudice, N. A. (2017). Spatial updating of multiple targets: Comparison of younger and older adults.��Memory & Cognition, 45(7), 1240-1251. DOI:

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Spatial Cognitive Aging: Cognitive Map Decay and Compensatory Augmentations for Older Adults

eblackwood — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 18:51:27 +0000

Christopher R. Bennett. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, February 2017, University of Maine. (N.A. Giudice: thesis advisor)

This dissertation research investigated navigation related spatio-cognitive changes associated with normal and healthy lifespan development. Age-related changes can negatively impact navigation ability, including increased safety concerns, greater risk of getting lost, and reduced navigation confidence for older adults. Experiment 1 explored the interaction between spatial memory and age. Participants learned 1, 3, or 6 target locations and were then asked to walk to one of these locations either directly or indirectly. Results showed that age had a significant impact on spatial memory limitations, as older adults were significantly less precise and accurate with responses when 3 to 6 targets were learned. Experiment 2 studied navigation behavior during driving between older and younger adults using an immersive virtual reality simulator. Participants were monitored as they drove a course that contained specific driving events known a priori to cause problems for older adults during real-world driving, such as intersection awareness and lane drifting. Results reflect clear disadvantages for older adult drivers as compared to younger drivers, but show that the same concerns in real world driving arise in the virtual simulation.

Experiments 3 and 4 characterized how stored cognitive maps, a critical mental structure needed to support navigation, change over time as a function of age. Participants learned outdoor (experiment 3) and indoor (experiment 4) environments, and then maintained those mental representations over the course of 2 weeks. Results demonstrated that the process of cognitive map decay follows a logarithmic trend over this temporal delay and occurs at greater magnitude for older adults as compared to their younger counterparts. The fifth study in this dissertation tested mitigation of cognitive map decay in older adults through the use of compensatory augmentations (spatial knowledge aids). The augmentations focused on online learning through enhanced visual access to landmarks and memory reconsolidation to support offline memory retention. Results show that the compensatory augmentations developed and tested were successful in reducing cognitive map decay. Contributions from this dissertation extend known theories of spatial aging literature to characterize a process of cognitive map decay for older adults and develop / evaluate solutions to reduce this decay.

Evaluating Age-Related Cognitive Map Decay using a Novel Time-Delayed Testing Paradigm

eblackwood — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:19:22 +0000

A critical component of effective navigation is the ability to form and maintain accurate cognitive maps. Proper cognitive map maintenance can become difficult for older adults as many of the constituent memory structures exhibit degradation with age. The present study employed a novel testing paradigm where younger adult participants (20 to 40 years) and older adult participants (60 to 80 years) learned a virtual environment through free exploration using an immersive driving simulator. After the learning phase, participants immediately sketched a map of the course. As forming an accurate baseline cognitive map was critical to this methodological procedure, they were provided additional learning time if placement of landmarks and roads were not within a given accuracy tolerance. Upon meeting criterion, participants completed egocentric and allocentric pointing tasks. Following this lab-based testing, participants were given 2 packets containing the exact same map sketching and pointing tasks to complete one-day and one-week after the study. Results showed clear age group differences, with older adult map sketching and pointing performance being significantly worse than their younger counterparts. There was also a clear numeric trend showing declines in performance for the older adults at the delayed-testing time intervals as compared to the in-lab testing. These findings suggest that the stored cognitive maps of older adults may exhibit greater decay over time as compared to younger adults. Future studies using this new methodological paradigm will be helpful in further elucidating the processes underlying spatial knowledge decay in older adults.

Keywords:�� Spatial Cognition, Driving, Aging, Virtual Reality, Navigation

Bennett, C.R. and Giudice, N.A. (in press). Evaluating age-related cognitive Map decay using a Novel time-delayed testing paradigm. In the Proceedings of Spatial Cognition X.

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Spatial updating of haptic arrays across the lifespan

eblackwood — Thu, 25 May 2017 19:38:38 +0000

Abstract:

Background:��Aging research addressing spatial learning, representation, and action is almost exclusively based on vision as the input source. Much less is known about how spatial abilities from non-visual inputs, particularly from haptic information, may change during lifespan spatial development. This research studied whether learning and updating of haptic target configurations differs as a function of age.

Method:��Three groups of participants, ranging from 20 to 80 years, felt four-target table-top circular arrays and then performed several tasks to assess lifespan haptic spatial cognition. Measures evaluated included egocentric pointing, allocentric pointing, and array reconstruction after physical or imagined spatial updating.

Results:��All measures revealed reliable differences between the oldest and youngest participant groups. Our age effect for egocentric pointing contrasts with previous findings showing preserved egocentric spatial abilities. Error performance on allocentric pointing and map reconstruction tasks showing a clear age effect, with the oldest participants exhibiting the greatest error, are in line with other studies in the visual domain. Post-updating performance sharply declined with age but did not reliably differ between physical and imagined updating.

Conclusion: Results suggest that there is a general trend for age-related degradation of spatial abilities after haptic learning, with the greatest declines manifesting in all measures in people over 60 years of age. Results are interpreted in terms of a spatial aging effect on mental transformations of 3D representations of space in working memory.

Citation:

Giudice, N.A., Bennett, C.R., Klatzky, R.L., and Loomis, J.M. (2017). Spatial Updating of haptic arrays across the lifespan. Experimental Aging Research.��43(3), 274-290.

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Immersive Virtual Reality Simulation as a Tool for Aging and Driving Research

eblackwood — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 17:12:21 +0000

Abstract:��

The aging process is associated with changes to many tasks of daily life for older adults, e.g. driving. This is particularly challenging in rural areas where public transportation is often non-existent. The current study explored how age affects driving ability through use of an immersive virtual reality driving simulator. Participants were required to respond to typical driving events: stopping at an intersection, controlling vehicle speed, and avoiding objects in the road. Results showed that older adult performance was consistently lower than the younger adult group for each driving event, and matched those of real-world accident data. Post-study survey data suggested that all participants were able to easily interact with the driving simulator. Results also demonstrate the efficacy of immersive virtual reality as an effective research tool. Findings from this research will influence the development of compensatory augmentations, or navigational aids, and enrich our understanding of driving and age-related concerns.

Citation:

Bennett, C.R., Corey, R.R., Giudice, U., and Giudice, N.A. (2016). Immersive virtual reality simulation as a tool for aging and driving research. In J. Zhou & G. Salvendy (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Conference of Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population (ITAP), Part of HCI International 2016. Toronto, CA. July 17-22 (pp. 377-385). Springer International. (corresponding author).

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Touch-Screen Technology for the Dynamic Display of 2D Spatial Information Without Vision: Promise and Progress

eblackwood — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 17:22:22 +0000

Many developers wish to capitalize on touch-screen technology for developing aids for the blind,��particularly by incorporating vibrotactile stimulation to convey patterns on their surfaces, which otherwise are featureless. Our belief is that they will need to take into account basic research on haptic��perception in designing these graphics interfaces. We point out constraints and limitations in haptic��processing that affect the use of these devices. We also suggest ways to use sound to augment basic��information from touch, and we include evaluation data from users of a touch-screen device with��vibrotactile and auditory feedback that we have been developing, called a vibro-audio interface.

Citation:

Klatzky, R.L., Giudice, N.A., Bennett, C.R., & Loomis, J.M. (2014). Touch-screen technology for the dynamic display of 2D spatial information without vision: Promise and progress. Multisensory Research. 27(5-6), 359-378.

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Combining locations from working memory and long-term memory into a common spatial image

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 15:07:48 +0000

Abstract: This research uses a novel integration paradigm to investigate whether target locations read in from long-term memory (LTM) differ from perceptually encoded inputs in spatial working-memory (SWM) with respect to systematic spatial error and/or noise, and whether SWM can simultaneously encompass both of these sources. Our results provide evidence for a composite representation of space in SWM derived from both perception and LTM, albeit with a loss in spatial precision of locations retrieved from LTM. More generally, the data support the concept of a spatial image in working memory and extend its potential sources to representations retrieved from LTM.

Citation:��Giudice, N. A., Klatzky, R. L., Bennett, C. R., & Loomis, J. M. (2013). Combining locations from working memory and long-term memory into a common spatial image. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 13(2), 103-128.

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Perception of 3-D location based on vision, touch, and extended touch

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 17:00:41 +0000

Abstract: Perception of the near environment gives rise to spatial images in working memory that continue to represent the spatial layout even after cessation of sensory input. As the observer moves, these spatial images are continuously updated. This research is concerned with (1) whether spatial images of targets are formed when they are sensed using extended touch (i.e., using a probe to extend the reach of the arm) and (2) the accuracy with which such targets are perceived. In Experiment 1, participants perceived the 3-D locations of individual targets from a fixed origin and were then tested with an updating task involving blindfolded walking followed by placement of the hand at the remembered target location. Twenty-four target locations, representing all combinations of two distances, two heights, and six azimuths, were perceived by vision or by blindfolded exploration with the bare hand, a 1-m probe, or a 2-m probe. Systematic errors in azimuth were observed for all targets, reflecting errors in representing the target locations and updating. Overall, updating after visual perception was best, but the quantitative differences between conditions were small. Experiment 2 demonstrated that auditory information signifying contact with the target was not a factor. Overall, the results indicate that 3-D spatial images can be formed of targets sensed by extended touch and that perception by extended touch, even out to 1.75 m, is surprisingly accurate.

Citation: Giudice, N.A., Klatzky, R.L., Bennett, C.R., & Loomis, J.M. (2013). Perception of 3-D location based on vision, touch, and extended touch. Experimental Brain Research, 224(1), 141-153.

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