Is there Similar Decline in Visual and Spatialdomains of Visuo-spatial Working Memorywith Ageing?

Abstract

Visuo-spatial working memory (WM) decline with advancing ageis a well-established fact. But, there is no agreement on whether, aparticular visual or spatial information declines as similarly as thevisuo-spatial information as a whole. The present study addressedthis question in a lifespan sample of 80 participants between 40-80years old. Three specific tasks were designed for visual, spatial andvisuo-spatial working memory. It was found that, a performanceacross visual WM was better than the spatial WM. Moreover, signif-icant differences were found between visual and spatial WM score[F (4, 75) = 32.65, p < .05]; visual and visuo-spatial WM score [F(4, 75) = 34.43, p < .05]. However, no significant difference wasfound between spatial and visuo-spatial WM score. In addition, thedecline pattern of spatial domain was similar to visuo-spatialdomain as a whole. This result revealed that the decline ofvisuo-spatial WM system with aging is primarily a decline of infor-mation associated with the location of the objects appeared in thevisual system. Hence, possible interpretations of these findings aresuggested and the theoretical and clinical implications considered