Ricerc@Sapienza

Notwithstanding its well-established role on high-demanding spatial navigation tasks during adulthood, the effect of field dependence-independence during the acquisition of spatial navigation skills is almost unknown. This study assessed for the first time the effect of field dependence-independence on topographical learning (TL) across the life span: 195 individuals, including 54 healthy young-adults (age-range = 20-30), 46 teenagers (age-range = 11-14), and 95 children (age-range = 6-9) participated in this study. Field dependence-independence interacted with age in predicting TL.

Exposure to environmental contextual changes, such as those occurring after an earthquake, requires individuals to learn novel routes around their environment, landmarks and spatial layout. In this study, we aimed to uncover whether contextual changes that occurred after the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake affected topographic memory in exposed survivors.